1943 - The Year the Nazis tried to Kill Churchill

Recent discovery of MI5 files show yet another 1943 Nazi Assasination attempt against British War-time leader Winston Churchill. This brings the total assasination scares against Churchill in 1943 to four separate plots by Nazi agents and special forces. Of Course the most well-known remains the fictional attempt to kidnap or kill Churchill in Jack Higgins - The Eagle has Landed.

The List so far

• February 1943 - Nazi Plot to kill Churchill in North Africa (Schultze - Tangier) cited in message from Attlee

• May 1943 - Chocolate Bomb plot - cited in MI5 report by Lord Rothschild

• June 1943 - Shooting down of Flight 777 and death of actor Leslie Howard

• October 1943 - Operation Longjump - Soviet claims of Otto Skorzeny plot to kill Churchill at Tehran

But was there an unreported attempt to Kill Churchill in March 1943 - when his bodyguard Walter Thompson was admitted to hospital with apparent self-inflicted gun shot wounds. His son who visited him in hospital claims it was an embarrassing accident caused by him keeping his revolver in his belt and jumping up to answer the telephone. Lord Haw-Haw claimed that Thompson had tried to kill himself (lies) but other reports suggested a more complicated version.

Certainly 1943 saw the deaths of 4 significant people of note

• July 4th 1943 Victor Cazalet MP  and General Sikorski in flying boat accident at Gibraltar
• March 17th 1943 Peter Mazzina's suicide by hanging in London
• July 7th 1943 Sir Harry Oakes's unsolved murder (probable shooting) in Nassau