1 June 1943: British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) Flight 777-A was a scheduled passenger flight from Lisboa-Portela de Sacavém Airport, in neutral Portugal, to Whitechurch Airport, Bristol, England. The airplane was a Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V. (KLM Royal Dutch Airlines) Douglas DC-3-194 twin-engine, 21-passenger commercial airliner, serial number 1590, with British registration G-AGBB.
The DC-3 had been delivered to KLM by ship, the Holland-America passenger liner, SS Statendam, which arrived 11 September 1936. The airliner was assigned Netherlands registration PH-ALI and named Ibis. It was the first of ten DC-3s ordered by KLM, and it regularly flew a London–Amsterdam–Berlin schedule.
KLM’s DC-3s were configured with a three-seat flight deck. A third seat was placed behind the first pilot, for use by a radio operator/navigator. A chart table was behind the second pilot’s seat.
When Germany invaded Holland in May 1940, Ibis was flown to England and was then leased to BOAC. Once in England, it was re-registered G-AGBB. Although it remained a civil aircraft, Ibis was painted in the standard Royal Air Force dark green, dark brown and gray camouflage. The original KLM flight crew continued to fly the airliner for BOAC.
At about 12:45 p.m., a flight of eight Junkers Ju 88C fighters, which were patrolling the Bay of Biscay to protect transiting U-boats, encountered the camouflaged DC-3 and shot it down.
All those aboard, 13 passengers and 4 crew members, were killed. Actor, director and producer Leslie Howard, who portrayed “Ashley Wilkes” in the 1939 motion picture, “Gone With The Wind,” and R. J Mitchell, designer of the Supermarine Spitfire, in 1942’s “First of the Few,” was one of the passengers who died.
Ibis had been attacked by German fighters on two previous occasions. On 15 November 1942 a Messerschmitt Bf-110 twin-engine fighter damaged it. On 19 April 1943, six Bf-110s attacked. Both times the DC-3 had been damaged but was able to land safely.
© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes