Talk:Leslie Howard

Walter H. Thompson

A documentary on Churchill's bodyguard shown on BBC2 last weekend seemed to add weight to the theory that Howard's plane was shot down in attempt on Churchill's life. It suggested, or perhaps merely speculated, that Churchill (who was due to fly back to the UK on the same evening as Howard's flight) had been aware of a possible attempt to shoot him down through secret Enigma decodings and had ordered his bodyguard to disable one of the engines of his plane in order for there to be an apparently legitimate explanation for him not flying back that evening. Churchill had made it clear that there should always be an alternate reason to explain actions initiated by the interception of German secret messages, in order to prevent the Germans from guessing that their codes has been broken. The documentary contained apparently new insight into the mystery of the engine fault. Jooler 21:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

War Service

I can only find this in the London Gazette which suggest he served until 1916 Steiner&exact=&atleast=&similar= as an 2nd Lt Kernel Saunters (talk) 14:28, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't shellshock, as this article suggests. He received a severe wound to the buttocks and never sat down comfortably for the rest of his life. --90.242.112.201 (talk) 18:45, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Above comment re a wound is incorrect. Leslie's medical assessment of January 1916, from his military record in the National Archives, is reproduced as figure 11 of the Eforgan biography (chapter 2) Npaskin (talk) 10:59, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Death

The infomation on his death was supposed to revealed this year (2008) but has been held back till 2025... any thoughts on why :O should this be put in? it was on BBC radio 4 program on Howards death —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.116.146 (talk) 17:41, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

This passage is very confused and lacks the specificity of reference to document the claim that all the cited books come to the conclusion that Howard's plan was targeted because of his presence. As worded the passage even ambiguously suggests that the Goss book may or may not endorse this theory:

Several exhaustively detailed books such as Bloody Biscay: The Story of the Luftwaffe's Only Long Range Maritime Fighter Unit, V Gruppe/Kampfgeschwader 40, and Its Adversaries 1942-1944 (2001 by Chris Goss) by (which comes to a slightly different conclusion), Flight 777 (1957 by Ian Colvin), and In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard (1984 by Ronald Howard, Leslie's son), conclude that the Germans were almost certainly out to shoot down the plane in order to kill Howard himself.[7]

Since I haven't read any of the books in question and don't have them, I have not attempted to edit the passage. However, it needs to be clarified. My own belief is that its highly probable that Howard was in fact targeted. But the article needs to analyze this problem with greater clarity than the present version does. Thanks to anyone who can supply details on this.--BenJonson (talk) 23:19, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The claim by Bloody Biscay: The Story of the Luftwaffe's Only Long Range Maritime Fighter Unit, V Gruppe/Kampfgeschwader 40, and Its Adversaries 1942-1944 (Chris Goss, 2001) is certainly not without controversy. Goss's book, quotes Oberleutnant Herbert Hintze, Staffel Führer of 14 staffels and based in Bordeaux, as remarking that his staffel shot down the DC-3 merely because it was recognised as an enemy aircraft, unaware that it was an unarmed civilian airliner. Hintze states that his fellow staffel pilots were angry that the Luftwaffe had not informed them of a scheduled flight between Lisbon and the UK, and that had they known, they could easily have escorted the DC-3 to Bordeaux and captured it and all aboard. This appears to be a total historical revisionist tact as the Luftwafffe had no qualms about shooting down civilian aircraft and had twice intercepted the "Ibis" with the intention of shooting it down.

The perception that Howard's DC-3 could be mistaken for Churchill's flight is a curious one as a massive problem exists with this theory in that Churchill did not fly via regular BOAC flights but had a specially designed RAF aircraft assigned to him, a converted Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber, a LB-30A transport. FwiW Bzuk (talk) 15:05, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

According to Martin Gilbert in the official Churchill biography, Churchill was flying in a (quote) Liberator instead of the more comfortable Boeing Clipper flying boat to which they had intended to transfer (unquote) (Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol 7, p.426) - quote and citation comes from Eforgan page 237, where she also points out that Gilbert has the date and flight details wrong. Npaskin (talk) 15:53, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Leslie Howard (actor)

89.164.231.121 (talk) 22:59, 16 January 2011 (UTC) "using "Stainer" as less German-sounding" - but this surname sounds very German! Probably he used Leslie Howard instead Leslie Howard Stainer.