A Look Back At The 30 Assault Unit, The British WWII Commando Group Created By Royal Navy Commander Ian Fleming, The Creator Of James Bond

Back in 2011 Counterterrorism magazine ran my piece on Ian Fleming and the British commando group he created in World War II.

Before he sat down at his desk at his Jamaican villa Goldeneye in 1952 and wrote the classic James Bond thrillers, Ian Fleming served as a Royal Navy intelligence officer during World War II.

Commander Fleming served as the personal assistant to the Director of British Royal Naval Intelligence and one of Fleming's accomplishments during the war was the creation of a naval intelligence-commando group called the 30 Assault Unit. 

You can read my piece above and below:

  

Note: You can click on the above to enlarge. 

My On Crime Fiction, True Crime & Thrillers Column: My Q&A With Thomas Maier, The Author Of 'The Invisible Spy: Churchill’s Rockefeller Center Spy Ring And America’s First Secret Agent of WWII'

Below is my Q&A with Thomas Maier, the author of The Invisible Spy: Churchill’s Rockefeller Center Spy Ring and America’s First Secret Agent of WWII:

Davis: Who was Ernest Cuneo and why did you write a book about him?

Maier: I wrote a book about Ernest Cuneo because I realized that he had deliberately remained anonymous for many years while he became America’s first spy of World War II, and that his life was absolutely fascinating. Cuneo grew up as an Italian American kid from the New York area who attended Columbia university, played football as a lineman in the NFL, and became a Democratic Party lawyer working for President Roosevelt. He also worked as the attorney for media megastar Walter Winchell, who had a nationwide Sunday radio broadcast and a column that appeared in hundreds of newspapers. I realized that there was a fascinating book to be written about Cuneo as a window into the origins of American espionage, as well as the use of the media during war time. Cuneo personally is interesting because he became enamored with one of Churchill spies at Rockefeller Center, Margaret Watson, whom he married. He also became very good friends with British spy Ian Fleming, helping him to write the James Bond novels and movies. Cuneo is one of the most remarkable Italian American lives of the 20th century, and I wanted to make sure my book captured every minute of this drama.

Davis: What was Ernest Cuneo’s association with William Stephenson and the British spy set up at Rockefeller Center in New York City during WWII?

Maier: Ernest Cuneo was central to the creation of the Churchill spy operation at Rockefeller Center in New York City. In the summer of 1940, with Hitler’s troops storming through Europe, the new British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill decided it was essential to get America into the war, or else all would be lost. At that time, President Roosevelt was campaigning for reelection with the promise that America would not enter the war in Europe. However, Churchill secretively sent William Stephenson, a Canadian war hero from World War I, to New York and he met with FBI director J, Edgar Hoover to gain the presidents permission for the secret spy operation. Hoover suggested to Stephenson that he approached the White House through a friend of his named Ernest Cuneo. And indeed, Cuneo wound up getting permission from the president for the Churchill spy operation to be set up at Rockefeller Center. It was something that virtually no Americans knew about at the time.

Davis: How would you describe William Stephenson? What was his mission in America?

Maier: William Stephenson was a very daring but subtle spy. His mission was threefold: to keep an eye on Nazi spies and German sympathizers in the New York area; make sure that the supply lines to England remained open; and most importantly, to set up a propaganda operation and election interference effort to convince America to get in the war and to undermine efforts by opposing American isolationists. 

Davis: How was Ernest Cuneo able to capture the ear of President Roosevelt and other Washington policy makers?

Maier: Cuneo attended Columbia University and was a lawyer in New York in the 1930s who worked with several key decision makers in President Roosevelt administration who shared the same background of Columbia University with him. Also, Cuneo worked as the attorney for the most powerful media voice in America, Walter Winchell, and therefore he was known at the White House for being able to get their views before the public on radio and in newspapers. Cuneo also worked as a Democratic Party lawyer and as a “advanced man" for President Roosevelt‘s election campaigns in the 1930s. So, he was familiar with many of the powerful figures in the Roosevelt administration. 

Davis: How would you describe British naval intelligence officer Commander Ian Fleming, and how did Cuneo and Fleming become friends?       

Maier: While working together at Rockefeller Center in the early days of World War II, American Ernest Cuneo became very good friends with British spy Ian Fleming. They were very different men physically and by background. But they both liked writing, laughter and having a good time at Manhattan’s nightclubs. Fleming was a very creative spy working for British naval intelligence. He came up with the idea for “Operation Mincemeat”, the famous British use of a corpse found at sea designed to confuse the Nazis by carrying phony maps and papers about a future Allied invasion. After the war, Fleming and Cuneo worked together at a newspaper syndicate and remained great friends. Cuneo helped Fleming research and write his James Bond novels. In fact, the James Bond novel Thunderball is actually dedicated to Cuneo.

Davis: How did Stephenson and Cuneo help defeat the Nazis in WWII?  

Maier: The British spy operation at Rockefeller Center, headed by Stephenson, provided a lot of help to the Americans when they entered the war.  Cuneo was often the point man between the White House and the spy operation in New York. Stephenson and his British spies helped train Americans in various ways of espionage. Most importantly, they provided the model for what became the Office of strategic Services (OSS), America’s first spy agency.

Davis: How did you research the book?

Maier: Much of my book is based upon the papers of Ernest Cuneo that are housed at the FDR presidential library. I also relied on an unpublished memoir by Cuneo, that was provided to me by his family with their permission. I also conducted research at the FDR library, the Churchill archives in the UK, and at other libraries.

Davis: What are you working on next?

Maier: I’m hoping that my book, Mafia Spies, which was a six-part series on Paramount + last summer, will now become a motion picture. Stay tuned and wish me luck!

Note: You can also read my Washington Times review of Thomas Maier’s Mafia Spies via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Washington Times Review of 'Mafia Spies: The Inside Story Of The CIA, Gangsters, JFK, And Castro'

Revealed: Ian Fleming’s Orders To D-Day Spies

Jack Blackburn at The Times in London offer a piece that reveals the orders issued to the WWII British intelligence group 30 Assault Unit for the D- Day invasion by Royal Navy Commander Ian Fleming, the future creator of James Bond (seen in the above photo at Royal Naval Intelligence HQ). 

You can read the piece via the below link or the below text:

Revealed: Ian Fleming’s orders to D-Day spies (thetimes.com)  

When troops landed on D-Day, some had an ulterior mission. Most were aimed at liberating nearby settlements but GCHQ has uncovered orders issued by the creator of 007 to a covert commando.

The listening service’s historians have found and released the orders that Ian Fleming — who would go on to write the James Bond thrillers — signed and issued to 30 Assault Unit, the covert unit he established to conduct intelligence operations during the Second World War.

In a highly detailed briefing, Fleming directed the men to go to various locations in France and elsewhere to find “items of immediate operational importance in the prosecution of the war against Germany”. These items included material relating to the Enigma code.

 

There was also a note about “new weapons or devices” that the Germans might have been developing. The desired intelligence items are listed as sufficiently important that they justified special operations and casualties.

The documents are testament to the thoroughness of British intelligence-gathering. At some points, the men are directed to individual rooms or even objects where the sensitive material was expected to be found.

For instance, one document tells the men: “It is reported that the secret books are kept in a light metal chest in an office in the [U-boat] pens: the door is marked only with the name ‘Oberschreibersmaat Fritz Frank’ without reference to his employment.”

In the Second World War, the role of 30AU (or Number 30 Commando) was to go ahead of the Allied forces and then behind enemy lines. Throughout the conflict, they performed vital work in different theatres of war in securing Nazi codebooks, ciphers and battle orders.

On D-Day, they landed on Juno and Utah beaches and proceeded inland; five were killed and 20 were wounded near Sainte-Mère-Église. It had been known that one of their targets was a radar station at Douvres-la-Délivrande, which held out for 11 days. The commandos were also charged with examining suspected V1 rocket sites. However, it now appears that they may have had many more targets.

 

The documents, marked “Top Secret” and “Bigot” (British invasion of German occupied territories), say that the men are to gather “All code books, cyphers and documents relating to signals, radar and communications: the ‘spools’ [wheels], junction boxes and indications of settings used in connection with the German ‘ENIGMA’ cyphering machines.”

 

The targets are listed in numerous French sea and river ports, such as Nantes, Bordeaux, Boulogne and Dunkirk, as well as targets in other countries along the north European coast.  How far they got with this list is not clear. It is known that they took part in the liberation of Cherbourg in June before racing toward the ports at Rennes and Brest in August. They then executed a series of operations in Le Havre and Dieppe. All those places appear on the list, and perhaps yielded vital intelligence for later in the war.

Whether the intelligence was as pinpoint accurate as it appeared remains to be seen, and it seems that Fleming and his colleagues had their doubts. They said the intelligence should be graded no higher than C, making it fairly reliable. The report is dated April 15, 1944, but there was a hope that corroboration would occur during the invasion

“Interrogation of prisoners in the field and up-to-date aerial photographs will probably be the only reliable cross-checks,” it said.  

Note: You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on Ian Fleming and the 30 Assault Unit via the below link: 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Piece On The 30 Assault Unit, The British WWII Commando Group Created By Ian Fleming, The Creator Of James Bond

And you can read my Washington Times On Crime column on the new Ian Fleming biography via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: Ian Fleming: The Complete Man: My Washington Times 'On Crime' Column On Nicholas Shakespeare, The Author Of The New Biography Of The Creator Of James Bond 

The Secret Mission of Commander Ian Fleming, The Creator Of James Bond, To Save Britain From Losing World War 2

Edward Abel Smith, the author of Ian Fleming’s Inspiration: The Truth Behind the Books, tells the British newspaper the Express about Commander Ian Fleming WWII Gibraltar plan.

Mr Fleming’s ‘From A View to a Kill’, James Bond is sent to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a dispatch rider carrying top-secret documents through Versailles, but soon discovers there is a hostile enemy base hidden in the rocks along the road. But, Edward Abel Smith, the author behind 'Ian Fleming's Inspiration,' has revealed this fantastical story was in fact born out of an idea Mr Fleming came up with during the war, when he was a naval intelligence officer. 

In his book, set to be released on May 30, Mr Smith casts light on the precarious situation the UK still found itself in, even after the Battle of Britain at the end of 1940.

Nazi Germany’s plan for an invasion of the south coast had been thwarted with the defeat of Hermann Goering’s Luftwaffe at the hands of the RAF – but Britain was very much alone as European states fell like dominoes to the advancing Wehrmacht, the US remained neutral and the Soviet Union sat back watching.

With Operation Sea Lion – Hitler’s codename for Nazi Germany’s planned invasion of Britain – all but abandoned, Berlin investigated alternative ways of waging war against the British, most notably with the Blitz, but also with campaigns in North Africa and the Mediterranean.

The latter is where Mr Fleming came in, as Gibraltar was a hugely significant strategic outpost for the Royal Navy and extremely vulnerable given its close proximity to fascist Spain – a state which, under General Francisco Franco’s rule, was officially neutral but certainly sympathetic to the Axis Powers.

Amid fears that Franco’s sympathies to Hitler and Italy’s Benito Mussolini could be solidified in a formal alliance, the British came up with Operation Tracer – a covert mission created by Mr Fleming to send six Britons to hide in the Rock of Gibraltar for a year. 

Mr Smith told Express.co.uk: “Fleming came up with these concepts, one of which was Operation Tracer, and it brings out quite a dark side in him.

“He’s very ruthless because he effectively knows if he puts these six men into the Rock of Gibraltar and cements them in and the Nazis were to invade or Spain were to join the Axis, immediately they would get left there and forgotten about.

“He knew very well that they had 12 months’ supply and the likelihood of being able to take Gibraltar back within 12 months was impossible.

“He was willing to train these men up and they would go in there and perish, but it’s fascinating the detail he went into, the books they should read, the exercises to do each day to survive, which was unheard of at the time.”

In an extract of the book seen by Express.co.uk, Mr Smith reveals how Mr Fleming earmarked the Gibraltar Straight as a key asset to the Allies for resupplying ships in Europe.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1287740/world-war-2-james-bond-ian-fleming-rock-gibraltar-adolf-hitler-nazi-germany-spain-spt

From The CIA With Love: A Look Back At Ian Fleming, The Man Behind The World's Most Famous Spy

While serving as the assistant to the director of British naval intelligence in WWII, Commander Ian Fleming (seen in the above photo) wrote a memo that served as a blueprint for the creation of an American WWII intelligence agency. 

And as we all know, Ian Fleming went on to write the James Bond thrillers.

In gratitude for his contribution to American intelligence, the CIA website offers a piece on Ian Fleming’s life, work and that certain memo.

You can read the piece via the below link: 

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2018-featured-story-archive/ian-fleming-the-man-behind-the-most-famous-spy.html 

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on Ian Fleming’s intelligence gathering commando unit via the below link   

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2011/11/look-back-at-30-assault-unit-british.html 

A Look Back At WWII's Dieppe Raid And James Bond Creator Ian Fleming's Role In The Military Operation

James Macgowan at the Toronto Star offers a review of David O'Keefe's One Day in August: The Untold Story Behind Canada's Tragedy at Dieppe.    

More than 71 years after 907 Canadians were cut down on the stony beaches of Dieppe during Operation Jubilee, Canadian historian David O’Keefe has produced a fast-paced and convincing book, One Day in August, that clears up decades of misinformation about the ignoble raid and should provide comfort for the few remaining survivors of that notorious massacre.

 

Over the years many historians have speculated about the purpose of the Allies’ August 19, 1942, raid on the French coastal town. Was it to relieve pressure on the Eastern front, where the Soviet Union was going it alone against the Nazis? Or was it a trial run for a European invasion? Perhaps it was Winston Churchill’s gift to his wife Clementine, who had once visited Dieppe and was very fond of the seaside resort. Just what was it the Allies were doing that day, when 250 ships carrying more than 6,000 troops — 5,000 of them Canadian, of which 68 per cent were either killed wounded or captured — and numerous tanks crossed the channel?

 

In 1995, O’Keefe began the process of finding out. While conducting research at the National Archives in Britain he came across a just-declassified file that contained a cryptic reference to something called the 30 Assault Unit, a commando group formed by none other than James Bond creator Ian Fleming. (Fleming, as O’Keefe discovered, was much closer to a Bond-like character than previously thought.) Further on, he spied another mystery: A 13-word sentence that read, “As regards captures, the party concerned at DIEPPE did not reach their objective.”

 

What party? What captures? What objective?

 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2013/11/05/one_day_in_august_by_david_okeefe_review.html

You can also read an excerpt from the book via the below link:

http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/rbc-taylor-prize-nominees-david-okeefe-on-the-secrets-of-dieppe/ 

 

 

And you can read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on Ian Fleming's wartime service and his creation of the 30 Assault Unit via the below link:

 

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2011/11/look-back-at-30-assault-unit-british.html 

An Officer And A Gentleman: Actor Dominic Cooper Appears As James Bond Creator Ian Fleming In Film Bio

The British newspaper the Daily Mail offers photographs of actor Dominic Cooper as he portrays James Bond author Ian Fleming, who served in British Naval Intelligence during World War II, for a film bio. (The real Commander Ian Fleming can be seen in the above photo).

You can read the piece and view the photos of Cooper as Fleming via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2352000/Former-Mama-Mia-star-Dominic-Cooper-looks-smart-smouldering-films-007-creator-Ian-Fleming-biopic.html?ito=feeds-newsxml 

And you can watch a trailer of the series  via the below link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCkRIk1oAuA

And you can read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on Ian Fleming's World War II experiences via the below links:

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Identity Of Double Agent Killed By MI6 in WWII Revealed: How Ian Fleming Helped Cover Up Secret That Stayed Buried For 70 years

 

Kerry McDermott at the British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a piece that reveals a secret from War World II.

Foreign Office files kept secret for more than 70 years have revealed details of how Mi6 kidnapped and killed a French double agent during World War Two - and ordered the creator of James Bond to help them cover it up.

In July 1941 British Intelligence learned that 'deeply trusted' Captain Pierre Lablache-Combier - a Royal Navy commander recruited by MI6 and posted to Spain - had divulged secrets to the Nazi-backed French Vichy government. 

James Bond writer Ian Fleming (seen in the above photo) - then a Naval Intelligence officer - issued an official report stating the officer was 'missing believed drowned'. In fact, the 'complete double-crosser' was killed as Secret Service operatives scrambled to smuggle him out of Spain.  

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2330825/Identity-double-agent-killed-MI6-WWII-revealed-newly-released-files.html

Entertainment Weekly Celebrates 50 Years Of James Bond

Entertainment Weekly has James Bond on the cover.

What is the most appropriate gift you could give Brit super spy and martini aficionado James Bond to celebrate 50 years of big screen 007 adventures? A cake in the shape of a gun? A gun in the shape of a cake? A new liver? Or…How about an entire issue of Entertainment Weekly devoted to the half century of espionage-themed pleasure the Bond franchise has given the world since Sean Connery defined the role of 007 — and Ursula Andress defined the ideal way to wear a bikini — in 1962′s Dr. No?

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/08/01/james-bond-skyfall-2/

The James Bond Film 'The Living Daylights' Is 25 Years Old Today

The web site MI6 reports that the James Bond film, The Living Daylights is 25-years old today.

Timothy Dalton's 007 debut in "The Living Daylights" was released in the UK on 29th July 1987.

Dalton brought a harder, grittier James Bond to the silver screen  

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=10270&t=mi6&s=news

You can also read an earlier post on Timothy Dalton and The Living Daylights via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2012/06/look-back-at-james-bond-film-living.html   

Spec-Ops Troops Study To Be Part-Spy, Part-Gumshoe

Kimberly Dozier at the Associated Press wrote an interesting piece about a new training course at Fort Bragg's Special Warfare Center.

The raid to grab Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan took just under 40 minutes , roughly 10 to get to bin Laden.

Special operators spent much of the rest of the time gathering evidence: computer files, written notes and thumb drives that pointed to new al-Qaida plots and previously secret operatives around the globe.

That science is what special operators of all types are learning at Fort Bragg's Special Warfare Center, with real-life scenarios meant to shock , and teach.

...The coursework is similar to the CIA's legendary spycraft training center called The Farm, and is at the brainchild of Green Beret Maj. Gen. Bennet Sacolick, a veteran of elite special operations units and a long stint on loan to the CIA.

Among the students at the CIA-approved Fort Bragg course are Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and Marine Corps special operators. As in the Navy SEAL raid that killed bin Laden, everything from computers to fingerprints can be retrieved from a raid site and quickly analyzed. In some cases the analysis is so fast it can lead to several new targets in a single night.

You can read the rest of the story at the below link to Philly.com:

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation/washington/20120104_ap_specopstroopsstudytobepartspypartgumshoe.html?c=r

Military Special Operators gathering evidence and intelligence is not a new concept.

None other than Ian Fleming, the creator of the fictional iconic character James Bond, conceived and organized a commando group called the 30 Assault Unit to do just this in World War II.

I wrote a piece on Commander Ian Fleming and his WWII intelligence-commando group for Counterterrorism magazine. You can read the magazine story via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/IanFlemingsCommandos.jpg

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Ian Fleming's Wartime Naval Jacket Sold At Auction

MI6, the James Bond web site, not the British Secret Intelligence Service, offers coverage of the auction sale of Ian Fleming's British Royal Navy jacket.

He wore the jacket (seen above) aboard a British warship during the Dieppe Raid in World War II.

At the outbreak of war Ian Fleming joined the Naval Intelligence Division, where he was quickly promoted from lieutenant to commander. He liaised on behalf of the director of naval intelligence with the other secret services. One of few people given access to Ultra intelligence, he was responsible for the navy's input into anti-German black propaganda" (ODNB). Primarily based at the Admiralty's Room 39, Fleming accompanied the allied troops as an observer on the "Dieppe Raid", an assault on the German held port carried out on 19 August, 1942.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=9822&t=mi6&s=news

You can also read my magazine piece on Ian Fleming and his creation of the World War II intelligence-commando group 30 Assault Unit via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2011/11/look-back-at-30-assault-unit-british.html

My Piece On The 30 Assault Unit, The British WWII Commando Group Created By Ian Fleming, The Creator Of James Bond

The latest issue of Counterterrorism magazine offers my piece on Ian Fleming and the British commando group he created in World War II.

Before he sat down at his desk at his Jamaican villa Goldeneye in 1952 and wrote the classic James Bond thrillers, Ian Fleming served as a Royal Navy officer during World War II.

Commander Fleming served as the personal assistant to the Director of British Naval Intelligence and one of Fleming's accomplishments during the war was the creation of a naval intelligence-commando group called the 30 Assault Unit. 

You can read my piece via below:

Note: You can click on the above to enlarge.