How many know this about Ian Flemming ?

He was sent to Canada, to SOE camp 103, near Toronto, to be a staff instructor. He taught "tradecraft skills " to trainee SOE agents, who would eventually be dropped into their home country in occuppied Europe.

Flemming taught street skills like how to folow someone, use a "mail drop " and how to loose a tail. He used the Royal York hotel ( which is still in business now ) to practice interrogation , and the big Eaton's department store, to teach how to go in one door and quickly out another to shake a tail.

One of the other staff at camo X as it came to be known was the inventor of the Fairbarin-Sykes comando knife, Major Fairbairn , who had previously been the chief of the Shanghi Police Riot Squad. He was known as the "most dangerous man in the world " for his amazing hand to hand fighting abilities. Fairbairn wrote the legendary training booklet, " Kill or Be Killed ". It is still in print, 65 years later.

Fairbairn was aged 58 at that time and he was still able to fight off 5 men at a time, with only his feet and hands. One very tough bugger.

For more information about Camp X, do a google. There is also a "Camp X Museum " located in Oshawa, Ontario .

Jim Bunting. Toronto, Ontario, Canada.