Ian Fleming planned to outwit the Nazis as a WW II navy officer




London, April 7 : More than a decade before he created James Bond, author Ian Fleming planned to outwit the Nazis during World War II, when he was a naval intelligence officer.


Fleming's plan was revealed at a new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London, For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond, which honours this year's centenary of his birth, and examines the novelist and James Bond in their historical contexts.

Operation Ruthless was a daring scheme to seize a German codebook.

Fleming's design was to stage a fake crash to attract one of the German rescue boats picking up airmen who had gone down in the English Channel, to overpower the crew, and to make off with their codebook that would be helpful in deciphering messages sent by the German navy.

The plan was eventually abandoned because of the lack of rescue boats operating at night, and also due to concerns about the safety of the crew.

James Taylor the curator of the museum, said that Fleming discovered a sense of purpose only in 1939 after careers as a journalist and "the world's worst stockbroker".

"The war was the first time that he found a role in life. The old-school-tie network got him a job as assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, but he excelled because of his intellect, inventiveness and great charm," Times Online quoted him as saying.

Peter Smithers, a colleague in naval intelligence, said: "Ian constantly longed to be engaged in the excitement. He was of an essentially aggressive nature. It was the repression of all these desires by authority, quite rightly, which in my opinion fired the imagination engaged in his books."

After the war Fleming became a journalist again and then a writer, dashing off Casino Royale in 1952 and 11 further Bond novels before his death in 1964 at the age of 56.

The exhibition runs from April 17 to March 1 next year.

Ian Fleming planned to outwit the Nazis as a WW II navy officer @ NewKerala.Com News, India

__________________
For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman

Rather old news, I guess just brought up again for the exhibition. Fleming did create 30AU I believe, a assault unit designed to break in and search for Nazi records that might be considered valuable.

You are right. I posted a thread about the 30 Au in the WWII General forum.

British 30 AU unit

__________________
For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman

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.