Nicholas Rankin has written a book that manages to be both incredibly entertaining and genuinely interesting, which takes a look at Ian Fleming’s wartime career; Despite spending the majority of his wartime service behind a desk, Fleming, more commonly known as the author of the James Bond novels, actually made some significant contributions to Allied success in WW2 specifically in the intelligence world.
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Fleming, like a lot of Officers in WW2 had been recruited directly via business and family connections. He was chosen as the assistant for the Director of Naval Intelligence (DNI), here he found himself a niche with unfettered access to some of the Allies closest secrets. Opinionated, resourceful and armed with the wider picture, Fleming became pivotal in driving the direction that DNI took particularly in the area of SIGINT. Rankin chronicles the efforts of those at Bletchley Park and their interactions with the various players in the Allied Intelligence community and the efforts undertaken to assist the Bletchley Park academics, which is where the idea of the “pinch” came from - liberating enemy ciphers and associated equipment, without them being aware.
Although very much an armchair Admiral Fleming relished the opportunity to get out of the office and influence events, one such example being his role in an abortive secret mission in occupied France to prevent the French Fleet falling into German hands. Very much in the business of cooking up daring schemes Fleming dreamt up an esoteric plan to “pinch” German Enigma ciphers/equipment by ditching an Allied-crewed captured German aircraft near the French coastline and luring in a German MTB. Innovative and risky it undoubtedly was but ultimately it was unsuccessful. Nonetheless an undeterred Fleming realised the value in having a unit established to handle the business of stealing the enemies intelligence assets.
To bring his vision to life Fleming looked to the Commandos – formed after Churchills famous decree – and despite their limited initial success in Norway, Fleming sought permission to establish an independant unit, which became known as 30 Assault Unit, the precursor to todays Royal Marine 30IX. The better part of Rankins book chronicles 30AU’s war from the questionable success of Normandy, the abject failures in the Mediterranean through to their successes in North Africa and throughout Europe at the lead of the D-Day invasion forces. I won’t go any further and spoil the experience for anyone who goes on to get this book but some of the exploits and scrapes are truly fantastic and worthy stories in their own right, indeed the recent film “Age of Heroes” was themed around one such raid.
For the Bond lovers out there (is there anyone who isn’t?) there is also one other interesting aspect to Rankins book in which he exposes the linkages between Flemings wartime experiences and his subsequent James Bond novels.
A superbly researched and written book which never ceases to entertain, I unreservedly recommend this and hence it gets a full five anchors from me!!
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