DB7

Noticing The Gentle Sex is being aired this weekend leads me to a query. Was the reason/purpose for Leslie Howard's fateful trip to Portugal during WWII ever made known?

Steve Crook

He was just doing a promotional tour through Spain & Portugal. There was a quite regular air service between Lisbon and England mainly flown by Dutch pilots.

There have been a few books written about that fatal flight. One by his family and another (that I've got) called "Flight 777: The Mystery of Leslie Howard" by Ian Colvin.

Steve Crook

PaPAS

DB7

British film star was secret agent, claims author

* Giles Tremlett in Madrid

He is remembered as the obsessive love interest of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, but Leslie Howard should also be recalled as a British secret agent who died returning from a clandestine war mission, claims a Spanish author.

José Rey-Xímena said that Howard, who was in a passenger aircraft shot down by the Luftwaffe in 1943, had just been to a secret meeting with General Franco, allegedly on a special mission for Winston Churchill, who wanted to get a secret message to the Spanish dictator.

"Thanks to him, at least in theory, Spain was persuaded to stay out of the war," Rey-Xímena claimed of the actor famous for his portrayal of the unattainable southern gentleman Ashley Wilkes, in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.

The alleged message conveyed by Howard was just one of the British attempts to keep Franco, who had come to power with the support of Hitler and Mussolini, from joining the wartime Axis alliance, Rey-Xímena said yesterday.

Howard used his contacts with a former lover, Conchita Montenegro, to get through to Franco and deliver the message, the writer said. Montenegro, a Spanish actor, told Rey-Xímena the full story of Howard's visit to Madrid shortly before her death at the age of 95 last year.

Montenegro, once dubbed the Spanish Greta Garbo, allegedly had an affair with Howard whom she met while shooting Never the Twain Shall Meet in 1931. She later married Ricardo Giménez-Arnau, who was in charge of foreign relations for the far-right Falangist party, which backed Franco's military uprising against the Republican government.

It was through her husband's family, whose members occupied several posts under Franco, that Howard managed to see Spain's ruler, the actor said.

Montenegro told Rey-Xímena that Howard's interview with Franco was supposedly about whether he would take the role of Columbus in a Spanish film. Franco was interested in cinema. The arrival in Madrid of a Hollywood star, at a time when Spain's rightwing dictatorship meant the country was widely shunned, caused a stir. Howard enraged British officials in Madrid, however, by refusing to attend many events organised for him. This, Montenegro said, was because he was preparing to meet Franco behind the back of the British ambassador.

Rey-Xímena, who has just published a book on the subject, has not revealed the full contents of the meeting. Howard left Madrid in June 1943 for Lisbon, and then boarded a DC-3 passenger airliner bound for London. The plane was intercepted off Spain by German fighters and went down in the Atlantic, killing all on board.

A rumour later circulated that the Germans thought Churchill himself was on board. Howard's manager, who also died in the crash, was said to resemble the British war leader.

Rey-Xímena said Howard's secret went down with the plane: "He has never been recognised either as a spy or as a hero."

stuart.scot

In Churchill's Bodyguard, a series narrated by Dennis Waterman, based on Walter Thompson's book, it claimed Howard was sacrificed in order for the Germans to believe the Inigma Code had not been broken.

To explain, Churchill and his bodyguard Walter Thompson were also in the area and got wind, due to the code, of an assisination attempt on The Prime Minister. Thompson I think confided to his son he had tampered with the plane, he and Winston were due to fly on, so it wouldn' be fit for take off. Churchill apparently knew that Howard was flying at the same time, but could do nothing to warn him and the others, without tipping telling the German's the code had been cracked.

Until I saw that I thought Howard may well have been killed because of his outstanding propaganda war films like Pimpernel Smith, though he wasn't the only worthwhile target for the German's on board the plane

CaptainWaggett

The new Leslie Howard story is being discussed on today's edition of PM (Radio 4 5pm-6.pm - I suspect it will be near the end but it will be on Listen Again afterwards)