Spoiler alert, it is true! He was an undercover British agent in WWII. Without boring you with his life previous to being a spy, here's the basic rundown on his life before the spy-hood. He was well educated, his father died fighting in France, and he became an assistant-editor with Reuters News Service. He proved to be a wonderful writer. With that known, I'm diving into his life as a spy.
Spy-hood in WWII
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| Vice Admiral John Godfrey |
After Reuters News Service he went to the London Times. Through his coverage of various trials he became known in the right places. He was recruited into Naval Intelligence to be the assistant of Admiral John Godfrey, who headed Naval Intelligence. He went from Lieutenant to Commander in rank. He was given a glowing review by the Admiral.
He soon joined them full time, assigned to section 17. This was where messages were handled from the Operational Intelligence Center (OIC). Confidential missions and messages happened here. From here he was reassigned to Liason between NID (Naval Intelligence Department) and SIS (see 007 part one for more information on this), the Political Warfare Executive, and JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee). He also hired members for the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.
What did he do when the war progressed? Glad you asked! He kept track of German warships in the North Sea and North Atlantic through NID. Fleming and his teacher Sydney Cotton often discussed untested gadgets for intelligence gathering.
What About the Missions?
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| The Danube River |
Fleming was made liaison to MI(R) and was part of subversive operations on behalf of the British intelligence. What they used to do was lease a bunch of barges on the Danube, making them unavailable to Germans, as well as other operational tricks. The people he worked with were a bit dirty in the espionage way. It flopped, leaving a few operatives fleeing from a stranded barge with Nazis in hot pursuit, but it was not for lack of trying.
Throughout his career he became friends with men who may have modeled for 007 without realizing it. What did he do, other than the failed Danube operation? He helped pave the bridge between British and American Intelligence. Add to that, that he was not a conventional man. He took a few seized Germans out to eat, got them drunk, and got confidential information from a drunk U-Boat Commander. He also ran an operation named Operation Golden Eye, meant to sabotage and open up communication links in case Germany would invade Spain. It was never necessary, fortunately.
Fleming was part of one of the most successful deception operations, one that fooled Germans into thinking the 1943 Europe invasion was taking place in the Balkans instead of Sicily. They placed a body of a drowned Naval officer along the Spanish coast, like a plane had crashed, and had false documents on the body. It was a huge success. He was even part of D-Day by assembling a large military library to prepare for it. We're talking a lot of maps and reports!
Fleming's Red Indians
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| Fleming's "Red Indians" |
Fleming commanded a covert group called "Number 30 Assault Unit" (AU-30), aka "Red Indians". They operated on a secret base outside of London. They were civilian, "dirty dozen" type men that may have questionable character. They were part of D-Day and secured U-Boat information. They once captured 300 Germans, their radar system, and destroyed docked U-Boats.
Their best work was transporting records to the German Navy Warfare Science Department, which housed all records of German Navy in World War I. This was Fleming's job, and he took it very seriously. Some or most of that information was probably gathered by his Red Indians.
His Retirement
After being discharged he became a foreign manager of a newspaper chain. He traveled, met Jacque Cousteau, met JFK, and had a home built in the Caribbean. He called that home Goldeneye. He enjoyed his island home and wrote his novels. He married Ann Rothermere. Unfortunately, he drank, smoked, and didn't take care of himself while living at Goldeneye. He died of a heart condition at age 56.
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| Fleming's Villa Goldeneye in Jamaica |
Pictures:
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