Ian Fleming: His Real Life As A Spy Part 1
He worked with Aleister Crowley, whom he based the villain in CASINO ROYALE on. He had a typewriter that could turn into a bicycle! His sex life was beyond Bond!
The creator of James Bond has been in the news about the FBI releasing a file about him. The file was not about him, it was about a question sent to the FBI from the producers of GOLDFINGER. The FBI never had an investigation of Fleming.
THE SECRET SERVICE
During World War II Ian Fleming was attached to Naval Intelligence – nothing to do with MI5 or MI6 – where he first worked as the personal assistant of the Director, Rear Admiral John Godfrey.
As of September 1942 Fleming became head of a special unit called "30 Assault Unit" (abbreviated to "30 Au"). The task of this secret unit was to infiltrate German and occupied territory with the object of learning more about the German army's nuclear programme. Initially consisting of three separate units, an amalgamation was pushed through in December 1942 and a single unit created.
30 Au operated with a great degree of independence and received its orders from the highest echelons of the British establishment and the intelligence community. The unit conducted secret missions behind German lines and captured codes, documents, various types of materiel, as well seeking information on the status of German atomic weapons programme.
Prior to the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944, the unit had been active on missions in North Africa, Greece, Corsica and Norway. On 6 June 1944 elements of 30 Au landed on Juno Beach (British and Canadian forces) and Utah Beach (US troops). The primary objective of 30 Au was to collect information on the basis of the so-called Black Book.
This book contained information about those German scientists who had a knowledge of atomic energy and the materials used for it. These persons and the materials had to be found regardless of the cost. If such people were found, they were to be immediately arrested and transferred to Britain for interrogation.
In the event about ten scientists were picked up and brought back to a safe house at Farn Hall near Cambridge. The interrogations were codenamed Operation Epsilon. It is generally accepted that the precise results of this operation have yet to be revealed.
Another 30 Au operation was Operation Paperclip. Here the aim was to smuggle academics and other senior figures of the Nazi regime back to the UK. Ian Fleming had a hand in these operations as well.
At the end of 1944 Ian Fleming returned from the Far East, where he had been working with Naval Intelligence as a liaison officer.
On 4 January 1945 Ian Fleming was called to London to be informed of a new and ultra-secret operation: tracking down the money and gold of the Nazis [2]. In political terms the financial war on Nazi Germany fell to the US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau. Morgenthau was the confidante of President Roosevelt and served in the Presidential cabinet from 1933 to 1945. He fell out of favour with Roosevelt's successor, President Harry Truman, because Truman rejected Morgenthau's idea of making Germany a purely agricultural country after the war [3].
During those first days of January 1945, the British decided to start secret operations aimed at getting hold of Nazi financial resources. To this day only a very little is known about this plan.
Nonetheless, in 1996 Christopher Creighton [4], a pseudonym of John Ainsworth Davis, revealed that during a secret operation – Operation JB – he had kidnapped Martin Bormann in the Soviet zone of Berlin and taken him back to the UK.
Bormann was the closest thing to a treasurer that the Third Reich had, but evidence about his fate following his escape from the Führerbunker is sketchy. Officially he was missing, but in 1972 human remains were found in West Berlin during excavations for a new underground station. One of the skeletons is thought to have been that of Martin Bormann.
Even so the object of Operation JB, which was implemented in May 1945, was to get Bormann out of Berlin. Creighton was one of the members of this operation, which was headed by Ian Fleming. The codename the latter chose to use for this operation was James Bond (J.B.).
Ian Fleming had borrowed the name from an existing writer, an ornithologist, and author of "A Field Guide to the Birds of the West Indies", although he did not seek the writer's permission to use it. Fleming had bought the book in November 1944, on his first visit to the Carribean.
The British were convinced that Bormann was in possession of the details of various Swiss bank accounts and knew the whereabouts of caches of precious metals and artworks.
According to Creighton, Bormann remained in the United Kingdom until 1956, before proceeding to South America where he disappeared. In 1946 Martin Bormann was condemned to death in absentia at the Nürnberg trials.
Creighton's book prompted a storm of debate.
Even so many a reader of this book will raise an eyebrow upon learning that Bormann was succesfully hidden from view for several decades, that the operation was called "James Bond" and that Ian Fleming was responsible for it.
On the other hand it is hard to ignore the fact that the book reproduces letters from Churchill, Lord Mountbatten and Ian Fleming discussing the operation. Via: The intelligence life of Ian Fleming by Herman MATTHIJS
The Intelligence Life Of Ian Fleming
Coming in Part 2: The road to Navy Intelligence.
Behind the paywall: The Real truth behind the life of 007- Secrets Of The Spies
Secrets of the Spies delves deep into a world of secrets and lies; from James Bond to Ian Fleming, Kim Philby to Sergei Skripal... the world of espionage is one of blurred lines where fact is often stranger than fiction; a world of murder, betrayal, romance, and duty.
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