When Ian Fleming picked my grandfather to steal Nazi secrets | Hacker News Reader

When Ian Fleming picked my grandfather to steal Nazi secrets

bbc.co.uk

91 pointsgadders12 comments

But was his grandfather able to swim ashore in a drysuit and then quickly change to a tuxedo that he had donned underneath as Bond can do? And before you call fiction on that one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2010_season)#Episo... (I don't think they were able to do the perfect red carnation bit, though).

I learned of Fleming's interesting background last week while watching Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007 on Netflix Instant, much recommended.

EDIT: Wrote the above before reading the story all the way, it is very poignant indeed. The cruelty of war, especially being killed by an unseen, remote enemy, is something that cannot be wholly imagined. My grandfather's niece died in the bombing of Dardanelles in WW1, people still talk about how they could only find a bunch of blonde hair, that was all that remained of her in the rubble.

Why link to the mythbusters when you could point to the guy who actually did it:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7601...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Tazelaar

http://www.cracked.com/article_19635_6-absurd-movie-scenes-t...

If the intelligence/SOE component of WWII interests you, I cannot recommend enough the book "Bodyguard of Lies" by Anthony Cave Brown. Some of his conclusions and theories have been proven inconsistent in the light of new information (declassified since 1975) but it remains the most comprehensive work on the subject I'm aware of.

"Most Secret War" by Dr. R.V. Jones is also good -- it covers the role of British Scientific Intelligence during the war, and the "War of the Beams", which was the subverting/jamming of the German navigation radio beacon system.

Could you share the name of the author or the ISBN of the "War of the Beams" book? I guess the title is different but I could not find it anyways.

Last summer the History Channel aired a silly documentary on the Dieppe raid which claimed the raid was an elaborate cover for Flemming and his commando group to pinch a U-boat code machine.

The reality is that Flemming and his group had nothing to do with the planning of the raid. They learned about afterwards and asked if they could tag along, drawing up their own targets, etc.

Also Dieppe was not used for U-boats so where they did get this idea they find an enigma machine?

There were a couple of versions of the Enigma. The German U-Boat command used it (4-rotors) as well as the Army (3-rotors). It's possible they hoped to pick up one being used by the Army, and even better, the keys for it.

Operationally, the Navy generally had better procedures, but both had weaknesses (cribs) that were able to be exploited by Bletchley Park. Both tended to have the phrase "Heil Hitler" in their messages, and the Navy would transmit identical weather info in both Enigma and weaker encryption systems.

If I remember the AU30 were targeting German Naval HQ at Dieppe.

Even if they did manage to pinch one of these machines the Germans would have noticed it and changed the codes.

I don't know if you saw the documentary which aired on Canadian History Channel last summer

The documentary was such a snow job, portraying Flemming as the master planner of British intelligence operations when he was just of one of many midstream officers.

I had no idea Ian Fleming had real life experience upon which to base his spy novels. I love how this story began to unravel based on a "chance meeting" and recognition of an unusual name. I have an unusual name. I could see running into that kind of social situation myself, though I imagine it would be more prosaic than this tale of intrigue.

Thank you for posting.

An intriguing story.

Thank you, I can relate to that, as I lost my grandfather in similar circumstances.

What a sad waste.

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