‘Fair chance’ seen for survival of actor
London, England (UP) –
British ships and planes searched the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond today for trace of Leslie Howard, stage and screen actor, and 16 other persons who were aboard a British airliner shot down by German aircraft within two hours’ flying time of Britain Tuesday.
A spokesman for the British Overseas Airways Corporation, operators of the Douglas twin-engined airliner, said the 13 passengers, including at least three women and two children, and four crewmen would have a “fair chance” of survival if they were able to make a reasonably good landing in the water.
However, Lisbon reports said rough weather in the Bay of Biscay was hampering the search and presumably increasing the hardships of any survivors.
The plane carried two rubber self-inflating lifeboats capable of carrying all 17 persons and equipped with flares, water, food, compass and paddles.
The BOAC spokesman said:
If the pilot was able and the plane was not shot to pieces, then I am sure the plane would remain afloat long enough for the crew members to launch dinghies.
The dinghies are inflatable by a simply apparatus and it seems reasonable that those not wounded or injured in landing could get into dinghies, but of course this all depends on whether the plane got down safely and that is what we do not know.
The last word received from the plane, on a regular flight from Lisbon to England, was that it was under attack by enemy planes. That was five hours after the plane had left Lisbon and the flight normally requires about seven hours.
The BOAC spokesman said that Royal Air Force pilots and crewmen forced down at sea have frequently survived four to five days in rubber dinghies identical to those with which the missing airliner was equipped. However, the RAF men were more warmly dressed and in better physical condition than the missing passengers.
The spokesman declined to comment on a Radio Berlin report that service between Lisbon and Britain has been suspended because of the attack, the first on a British airliner on this service since it was inaugurated.
There was some speculation that the Germans attacked the plane in the belief that Prime Minister Churchill was aboard. Spanish reports were that Mr. Churchill had arrived in Gibraltar last week from the United States and it was noted that the Gibraltar-Britain air route parallels that between Lisbon and England most of the way.