Not mentioned in the brief bio is Fleming's work during WWII. Notably, he conceived of Operation Ruthless, a plan to stage a German plane ditching, and capture the German rescue ship with an Emigma code book.
> In a book not short on detail – more of this in a moment – Shakespeare expends vast amounts of ink in trying to work out exactly how adept Commander Fleming, as he soon became, was at his job and how widely his operational net extended. Whatever Fleming’s precise achievements in Room 39 at the Admiralty Office, he clearly found himself at home in a milieu far more suited to his administrative and imaginative talents than any employment previously offered him. He was a resourceful and consistently adept man-manager at the very centre of the British intelligence machine, Shakespeare concludes, often seen at Bletchley Park and ‘a war-winner’, according to his old boss.