Spaniards to Erect Monument to Leslie Howard

[Are_grits_groceries]

MADRID (AP) -- ''Gone With the Wind'' actor Leslie Howard will be honored as a war hero with a monument in Spain near where his plane was shot down by Nazi fighter pilots during World War II, a historical association said Saturday.

The propeller-shaped sculpture will be unveiled in July near Cedeira bearing the names of those who died aboard the commercial flight from Portugal to Britain in 1943, said the Royal Green Jackets association and author Jose Rey Ximena.

Association President Manuel Santiago Arenas Roca said the London-born Howard joined the Allies and campaigned hard against the Axis powers. Ximena said Germany's government at the time apparently was worried about the negative impact the high-profile actor-director's anti-Nazi publicity was having on its cause.

Many books have been written about KLM flight 777 which was downed by a squadron of Junkers 88 fighter planes, said Ximena, who believes the star of the 1939 Academy-Award-winning ''Gone with the Wind'' and the 1934 movie ''The Scarlet Pimpernel'' had been on ''a secret mission'' to stop Spain joining Germany and Italy in combat.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/04/18/world/AP-EU-Spain-Leslie-Howard.html

Miz Scarlett loved him.
He fought in WWI too.

[MADem]

1. Now that is a quirky and cool bit of news. NT

[kiva]

2. He may have been second to Clark Gable in GWTW,

but he was a hero in his own life.

[panader0]

4. Clark Gable served in the army aircorp I believe

Yeah, five missions on a B-17. My dad said he met him in England during the war. My dad flew 50 missions.

[moez]

3. That'll be quite an erection...

[applegrove]

5. Wasn't there a story that the authorities knew that plane was in danger of being shot

down but didn't want to give away the fact that they had broken nazi code. So Leslie Howard (along with a whole host of people over the years) died to save the secret that the Brits had broken the code.

[arcadian]

6. Hehehe... erect

Susan Boyle