Ian Fleming and SOE's Operation Postmaster: The Top Secret Story Behind 007: The Untold Top Secret Story

Product Information

The story follows a small group of soldiers from Dunkirk through special operations training to mission “Operation Postmaster.” Brian Lett explains how Ian Fleming was involved with the SOE, how he knew the individuals involved, and how he incorporated certain characteristics from each member into his fictional character James Bond. Brian breaks down the makeup of the SOE and the code words and letters utilized during the time and how Ian Fleming incorporated those into his series. No1 Army Commando". Commando Veterans Association. Archived from the original on 10 May 2010 . Retrieved 21 April 2010. Operation Postmaster was a British special operation conducted on the Spanish island of Fernando Po, now known as Bioko, off West Africa in the Gulf of Guinea, during the Second World War. The mission was carried out by the Small Scale Raiding Force (SSRF) and the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in January 1942. Their objective was to board the Italian and German ships in the harbour and sail them to Lagos. The SSRF under the command of Major Gus March-Phillipps left Britain in August 1941 and sailed the Brixham trawler, Maid of Honour, [1] to the Spanish colony. In May, the Special Service Brigade, No. 2, No. 3, No. 40 (RM), and No. 41 (RM) Commandos were sent to the Mediterranean to take part in the Allied invasion of Sicily. The two Royal Marine commandos landed ahead of the main force at 03:00 hours. [37] [38]

After seven months as a mechanics instructor with the Royal Army Service Corps, Winter volunteered for the Parachute Wing, No2 Commando, in 1940.While a PoW, he sent coded letters to his wife, Lily, that provided the War Office with valuable information, gleaned while on working parties, about factories in the area producing equipment for the German war effort. The search for the U-boat bases now started, but the SSRF found no evidence of U-boat activities in the course of its forays into many of the area’s river estuaries and deltas.

Not all operations were successful and few were as disastrous as the raid on the Greek islands of Halki and Alimnia, when ten agents were captured after being surrounded by German gunboats. Nine of them were executed after being tortured. Messenger, Charles (1991). The Last Prussian: A Biography of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, 1875–1953. Brassey's. ISBN 0-08-036707-0. Operation Postmaster was launched in January 1942. During this, No. 62 Commando carried out a raid in neutral Spanish Guinea, when they seized an Italian liner, a German tanker and a yacht from Santa Isabel. [24]Shortt, James; McBride, Angus (1981). The Special Air Service. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 0-85045-396-8. Winter’s Military Medal was announced on June 20, 1946 when his citation concluded: “On all occasions when in action he has acted with courage and resourcefulness, coupled with a real desire to engage the enemy. He has at all times shown himself to be a very capable NCO [Non Commissioned Officer] and a fine example to his men.”

In 1943, the German battleship Tirpitz was hiding out in Norwegian fjords, positioned to threaten Allied convoys from Britain to the Soviet Union. Even worse for the British, the four battleships tasked with keeping the Tirpitz at bay were desperately needed to fight against the Japanese in the Pacific. With this in mind, as well as the fact that the Tirpitz was the responsibility of the Royal Navy to defeat, the British admiralty came up with a daring plan to damage the Tirpitz using midget submarines. family, resulted in his association with their small high speed vessels. Experimental types were built in 1942 and numbered 344, 345 and 346. No. Brian Lett´s book is an inspiring and exciting book that should please not just SOE and Fleming/Bond buffs. As part of the plot, two Soviet defectors were trained for the mission, equipped with special assassination tools, and given a myriad of false documentation to allow them to slip through Soviet lines, get into Moscow and close to Stalin, and kill him. Before the mission, the agents, a man and a woman, had gotten married to each other. The agents were inserted into the Soviet Union via a cargo plane, which crashed. However, the crew and the two agents were unharmed, and the agents set off on a motorcycle.

Operation Postmaster

Weeks later, the Italian resistance collapsed and they signed an armistice. Sometimes, the SOE acted on impulse. In the Aegean islands, one group of agents discovered the Germans were planning to remove children from an orphanage on the island of Nisyros.

Britain’s Special Forces units, including the famous SAS and lesser-known (and long-defunct) SSRF, have their origins in the early 1940s when military leaders realised the value of using small, mobile and highly-trained units to launch hit-and-run raids on a far larger enemy force. In June, the Allies invaded Vichy French controlled Syria and Lebanon, Operation Exporter. [15] As a part of this operation, No. 11 (Scottish) Commando were tasked with seizing a crossing over the Litani River. [18] The action cost the Commando over 120 casualties, which equated to nearly a quarter of their strength. [17] Most of the raiders boarded their collapsible boat leaving one man on the MTB, and landed 20 minutes later. Only then did they realise they were in the wrong location – Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, about a mile from their objective. Two of the commandos were captured and executed, but the other two were smuggled out of France and into Spain by French resistance members. The strike was a huge propaganda boost for the struggling Allies, and the Germans were forced to guard their ships more closely from then on, an increased expenditure of resources.The massive scope of the operation was only possible because of, ironically, German-speaking Jewish refugees who had escaped Germany and settled in Britain. Now, these refugees were breaking into Luftwaffe radio channels and playing merry hell with the Luftwaffe’s ability to direct their night fighters. In one particular instance in 1943, the British got nearly all the German night fighters to fly home, and only one aircraft was lost during that night. Another time, a German night fighter which had gotten lost was diverted to a British airfield and captured. 3 Operation Peppermint Unhappily, it turned out that the beach was a well-defended enemy stronghold, and all ten men of the SSRF who landed were either killed or captured. Before the war, Hayes went to Mariehamn in Finland and signed onto the windjammer Pommern, on which he sailed around the world via Cape Horn and Australia. This sea-faring experience was put to good use during his military career. [1] Wartime activities [ edit ] In 1941 the British Admiralty started receiving reports that German submarines were using the rivers in Vichy French parts of Africa as a base for refuelling. [2] The unit selected to investigate the reports was the Small Scale Raiding Force (SSRF) also known as No. 62 Commando. [3] The SSRF was formed in 1941, and consisted of a small group of 55 commando-trained personnel working with the Special Operations Executive (SOE). [3] While being under operational control of Combined Operations Headquarters, No. 62 Commando itself was under the command Major Gustavus Henry March-Phillipps. [4]