Ian Flemming’s Glorious Plot

We discovered a cool Ian Flemming story today and I thought I would share it with all of you. The story originated from The Times and was made available to us thanks to cinematical:

My favorite news story of the week comes courtesy of The Times, which reports on an Ian Fleming/James Bond-themed exhibition at the British Imperial War Museum. Apparently, when Fleming was an intelligence officer in the Royal Navy — in 1940, 13 years before Bond began — he concocted a harebrained scheme to seize the decryption code used by the German navy to send messages.

He proposed to take a captured German plane, fill it with German-speaking Brits, crash it into the English Channel, wait for a German rescue boat to come by, board it, sabotage it, and run off with the loot. (Or, in Fleming’s brilliantly terse formulation: “Crash plane in the Channel after making S.O.S. to rescue service. Once aboard rescue boat, shoot German crew, dump overboard, bring rescue boat back to English port.”) Even better, he was able to put together a team and await the opportunity to put his plan into action — but one never came up, and higher-ups started to worry about the crew being killed in the crash or drowning.

By the sounds of it, Ian Flemming was as bad ass as James Bond himself. It’s interesting to hear of these tales, the mind starts to spin and you wonder how many personal stories Flemming drew from when writing his James Bond books. The only one that knows the truth is dead; but guessing is half the fun.

James Bond is a fantastic character and has managed to be a movie going staple for almost 50 years. The agent with particular tastes remains a cultural icon to this day and we are forever in the dent of Ian Flemming for creating this god man. Action stars will come and go, but James Bond will be with us as long as films are made.

7 Comments, Comment or Ping

  1. chris (the real one)

    lol…i dont know why but that made my day….nice job john. i got a lil bit tired of james bond, but after seeing casino royale im a fan again. flemming created a timeless character…

  2. Phil Gee

    Well i’ll tell you another one sir. The chief inspiration for Casino Royale was Fleming’s trip to the Casino Estoril in Portugal while he was in Naval Intelligence. He concoted a plan to challenge the resident Nazi’s to a high stakes card game and clean them out. Unfortunately, as he told the story, it was him that lost all his money to the Germans.

    Later, his friend who was with him said that Fleming had only played against Portugese businessmen while he was there and merely fantasized about taking on the Germans and thus, created the story for the first Bond book.

    Both of them, fantastic tall tales regardless.

  3. John A.

    There was a made for TV movie back in the 1990 that starred Jason Connery (Sean’s kid) called Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Flemming.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100567/

    It added some fiction to the life of Flemming but was based on fact.

  4. Ezell

    Ian Flemming’s is the greatest action writer of all time forget Tom Clancey even though he is good but he is not Immortal.

  5. Ezell

    Well connery was in the films that were based off the books when Moore took over he did three based on the books but then some idot made wrote some scripts and just made bond a pritty boy like dolten and most of Moore and all of Brosnens. Criag is the Bond from the Books not Connery even though he was great. he was not the bond from the books. Bond is a dark character he is a killer and a womanizer make no mistake about him and Daniel Criag nailed it so to bad to all you people that oh he has blond hair and blue eyes big deal you can barely tell he is Blond in the films.

  6. JamieM

    he used to whip his wife S&M style before S&M was invented. dude was hardcore

  7. KIMMICHAEL

    Great book by John Pearson James Bond The Authorised Biography of 007 (Grafton Books 1973). The fictional story is that ‘Ian Fleming’s debonair, ruthless secret agent with the coveted licence to kill was based on a real British agent. A real agent called James Bond.’ The story takes place in the Bahamas where the writer meets the real 007 now retired and living on the beach in the Bahamas. It is explained how the stories in the books were written by Flemming to cover the actual missions that took place. Lots of surprises and coloring of previous storylines for the Flemming Bond lover.

    Great read when you get tired of the movies.

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