WW2 pilot with role in daring operation that inspired Hollywood movie dies aged 100
An airman who played a leading role in one of the most daring operations of the Second World War has died, aged 100.
Bill Leckie flew an RAF Halifax bomber deep over enemy territory carrying four secret agents who he dropped near Altaussee salt mine in the German-occupied Austrian Alps.
The Special Operations Executive agents’ mission on April 8, 1945, was to rescue 6,755 priceless works of art by Michelangelo, Vermeer and others the Nazis had looted for a display planned by Adolf Hitler.
German forces had rigged the mine with explosives to prevent the treasures falling into Allied hands but the operation was a success.
The mission was the subject of a book and film, The Monuments Men, starring George Clooney and Matt Damon.
Mr Leckie, of Troon, Ayrshire, said later: “I now wonder what my feelings would have been if I’d known then one of my passengers was a former Luftwaffe (German air force) paymaster who had defected to the French Resistance. He was a native to the area we were heading and had discovered from relatives the Nazi plan to conceal massive collections of art treasures in this area.”
Posted to RAF Bomber Command, Mr Leckie attacked a German flying-bomb factory on one raid. In another sortie, he dropped guns, ammunition and supplies to Polish troops fighting the Nazis in August 1944. For that mission, he was awarded the Polish Cross of Valour.
A native of Glasgow, Mr Leckie was a cinema projectionist before joining the RAF in 1941 and training as a pilot in England, Canada and the US.
After the war, he returned to his cinema job before joining the Hoover domestic appliance firm.
Mr Leckie was later involved in civilian pilot training at Scone, Perthshire, before joining Irish airline Aer Lingus as a pilot for 25 years until his retirement in 1979.
The father-of-three and greatgrandfather, whose wife Ina died in
2012, celebrated his 100th birthday in June and was honoured with a flypast by the Irish air force.
UK veterans and representatives from the Royal British Legion in Ireland attended Mr Leckie’s funeral service at St Patrick’s Church in Enniskerry.
Mr Leckie’s life will be celebrated with a service at Holmsford Bridge crematorium in Dreghorn, Ayrshire, tomorrow at 11.30am.