Ian Fleming's Commandos

Summary

Dan Snow's History Hit: Episode Summary - "Ian Fleming's Commandos"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Dan Snow's History Hit
• Episode: Ian Fleming's Commandos
• Release Date: November 25, 2024
• Host/Author: History Hit (Dan Snow)

Overview: In the episode titled "Ian Fleming's Commandos," historian Dan Snow delves into the intriguing intersection between real-life military operations and the fictional world of James Bond. The focus is on Ian Fleming's involvement in the formation and operations of the 30 Assault Unit (30 AU) during World War II and how these experiences influenced his creation of the iconic spy, James Bond.

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Introduction to 30 Assault Unit and Ian Fleming

[02:28] Dan Snow:
Dan Snow introduces the historical context of 1956, highlighting the geopolitical tensions of the time. He quickly moves to Ian Fleming's novel, From Russia with Love, which introduces James Bond as an MI6 operative facing a Soviet conspiracy orchestrated by SMERSH.

[03:10] Dan Snow:
Dan draws parallels between the fictional Spectre machine in Fleming's novel and the real Enigma machine used by Nazis during WWII. He raises the question of how Fleming, writing in 1956 before the declassification of Enigma, could incorporate such an element into his work.

[04:00] Dan Snow:
He reveals that Ian Fleming's background as a senior wartime intelligence officer heavily influenced his writing. Fleming led the 30 Assault Unit, a specialized commando group focused on capturing German signals intelligence, directly informing his portrayal of espionage in his novels.

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Formation and Operations of 30 Assault Unit

[06:52] Dave Roberts:
“No black white unity till there is.”

[07:05] Dan Snow:
Dan Snow welcomes Dave Roberts, a renowned historian and leading expert on 30 Assault Unit, to discuss the unit's formation, operations, and legacy.

[07:15] Dave Roberts:
Roberts explains that while Fleming is often credited with founding 30 AU, the concept was inspired by German Abwehr Commando units. Fleming's proposal in March 1942 led to the creation of an organized effort to capture Enigma machines and other intelligence materials systematically.

[08:01] Dave Roberts:
Roberts details Fleming's transition from a failed stockbroker and Reuters journalist to a wartime intelligence officer, recruited by John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence, in early 1939.

[09:13] Dave Roberts:
He highlights Fleming's imaginative approach to intelligence operations, leading to daring plans like Operation Ruthless, which involved using captured German aircraft to infiltrate enemy lines and seize Enigma machines.

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Key Operations and Missions

[11:06] Dan Snow:
Dan mentions Operation Postmaster, recently featured in a Guy Ritchie film, and seeks Roberts' insights into the myth versus reality of these missions.

[11:38] Dave Roberts:
Roberts clarifies that while Fleming was instrumental in pushing operations forward, 30 AU's actions were more nuanced and less flamboyant than depicted in films. Their missions, such as the sabotage of German U-boat support vessels in West Africa, were crucial in turning the tide in the Atlantic.

[13:27] Dave Roberts:
He discusses the critical period in early 1942 when Britain faced significant setbacks. The introduction of the four-rotor Enigma machine by the Germans threatened British naval intelligence. Fleming's proposal for 30 AU aimed to create a dedicated unit to systematically capture signals intelligence.

[16:15] Dave Roberts:
Roberts describes the recruitment strategy for 30 AU, emphasizing the selection of eccentric and unconventional men from the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. This approach ensured a team adept at unconventional warfare, critical for their intelligence missions.

[18:16] Dave Roberts:
He outlines 30 AU's early missions, including Operation Torch's invasion of North Africa and their role in capturing French admiralty buildings in Algiers. Despite initial setbacks, such as friendly fire from French forces, the unit successfully secured valuable intelligence, including an Enigma machine.

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Impact on James Bond and Legacy

[39:06] Dave Roberts:
Roberts draws direct connections between 30 AU's operations and the James Bond character. He cites Lieutenant Commander Patrick DL Job as a strong candidate for inspiring Bond, highlighting his eccentricities and daring tactics.

[40:59] Dave Roberts:
He elaborates on characters from 30 AU appearing in Bond novels, such as Tony Hugill in The Man with the Golden Gun and Hugo Drax in Moonraker. These incorporations underscore how Fleming's real-life intelligence work shaped his fictional narratives.

[41:04] Dave Roberts:
Discussing the unit's dissolution post-war, Roberts notes that 30 AU's legacy persists in modern Special Forces. The British Royal Navy's current 30 Commando Intelligence Exploitation Group pays homage to its wartime predecessor, continuing its mission in intelligence and electronic warfare.

[42:31] Dave Roberts:
He reflects on the British psyche that fostered such unconventional units, suggesting that this unique mindset was pivotal in developing effective special operations forces that have influenced worldwide military tactics.

---

Notable Quotes

• Dave Roberts:
  “He recruits another polar explorer, Quentin Riley, and he also recruits Dunstan Curtis, who was an MGB commander at St Nazaire and won a DSC and Saint Nazaire.”
  [16:15]

• Dave Roberts:
  “James Bond is an amalgamation of so many characters that Fleming came across during his time in intelligence, and some of those yet did indeed work in 30 AU.”
  [39:06]

• Dan Snow:
  “There is something unusual about the Brits. Or would the French, the Americans, the Germans, the Russians all have stories like this about units and ways of going about things. It’s just that we’re blind to those because of our patriotism.”
  [42:08]

---

Conclusion

Dan Snow's episode on "Ian Fleming's Commandos" offers a captivating exploration of how real-world intelligence operations during WWII significantly influenced the creation of one of literature's most enduring characters, James Bond. Through detailed discussions with historian Dave Roberts, the episode sheds light on the formation, missions, and lasting legacy of the 30 Assault Unit, illustrating the profound impact of Fleming's wartime experiences on his fictional narratives.

For history enthusiasts seeking to understand the intricate connections between actual military operations and their portrayal in popular culture, this episode provides a thorough and engaging examination.

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Credits:

• Host: Dan Snow
• Guest: Dave Roberts, Historian and Expert on 30 Assault Unit
• Podcast: History Hit

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Note: Advertisements, non-content sections, and promotional segments have been excluded to focus solely on the episode's substantive discussions.

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

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[Dan Snow]

Pet 1956 the world is split between two mighty power blocks. Nuclear armed hair triggers rivalry that seeps into every aspect of life. That was the year that a British author published a novel. A novel that captured some of the excitement and subterfuge of the era. A tale of deception, seduction and deadly espionage. That novelist's name was Ian Fleming. His book was called From Russia with Love. The main character was an MI6 operative called Bond, James Bond. Our hero faces a Sinister conspiracy orchestrated by smersh, the Soviet Union's ruthless counterintelligence agency. Determined to eliminate Bond and embarrass British intelligence, SMERSH offers up an irresistible bait. The promise of the coveted Soviet cipher machine, the spectre. It was dangled in front of Bond, of course, by an enigmatic beautiful defector, Tatiana Romanova. Taking the bait, Bond embarks on a perilous mission to Istanbul, a city of shadows, an arena for east west competition. Fleming writes that glitter in M's eyes, thought Bond, how well he knew those moments when M's cold grey eyes betrayed their excitement and their greed. She had a last card to play and she knew it was the ace of trumps. If she could come over to us, she would bring her cipher machine with her. It's the brand new SPECTRE machine, the thing we'd give our eyes to have. God, said Bond softly, his mind boggling at the immensity of the prize. The Spectre, the machine that would allow them to decipher the top secret traffic of all. To have that, even if its loss was immediately discovered and the settings changed, or the machine taken out of service in Russian embassies and spy centres all over the world, would be a priceless victory. So it's a cipher machine that could crack all top secret Russian traffic. Well, that all sounds pretty familiar now. It sounds exactly like the Enigma machine. The one the Nazis used to encrypt all their messages during the Second World War. And yet the eagle eyed among you will have realised that 1956 was way before the whole story of Enigma had been declassified. So how had some novelist got wind of this intensely guarded official secret? Well, because Fleming was no ordinary novelist. He'd been a senior wartime intelligence officer and he seems to based this storyline on the hunt for the German cipher machine, the Enigma. Fleming was drawing on his experience with 30 Assault Unit, which was a rather unconventional group of commandos who were formed to focus on capturing German signals intelligence documents, blueprints, communications codes. They operated behind enemy lines, usually targeting command centers, signals hubs, intelligence bunkers. Always looking for top secret material and objects. So folks, we've all heard the stories of this person or that person inspired Bond. My in laws would like to tell you that one member of their family family inspired Bond. And maybe they're right. But what is certainly true is that much of Bond is based on the exploits the men of 30 Assault Unit. And that's because we know that Fleming was instrumental in forming that unit and in charge of overseeing their escapades. So today let's talk about 30 assault unit. There is no better person to tell us this astonishing story than Dave Roberts. He's a historian, he's the leading voice on 30 assault unit and he tells me how their DNA is still in many of these special operations units that we still have today. You listen to Dan Snow's history hit. This is the true story of Ian Fleming's Bond T -10 atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the King.

[Dave Roberts]

No black white unity till there is.

[Unknown]

First some black unity.

[Dave Roberts]

Never to go to war with one another again. And liftoff. And the shuttle has cleared the tower.

[Dan Snow]

Dave, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

[Dave Roberts]

It's a pleasure to be here and thank you for having me.

[Dan Snow]

Whose idea was this sneaky elite unit?

[Dave Roberts]

Fleming would love us to believe that it was his original idea, but he basically pinched it from the Germans. The Germans? Admiral Canaris had created a sort of a special intelligence unit for their early operations into the Balkans, particularly where this elite unit would race ahead on motorbikes, seize headquarters codes and so on. They were known as the Abwehr Commando. And Fleming, amongst others in the British intelligence world, had come across these. But in March 1942, it's Fleming that writes the proposal that grabs the attention and.

[Dan Snow]

Well, in that case, let's talk about Ian Fleming, what his war been like thus far. Was he a pre war intelligence officer or did he. Was he a wartime recruitment?

[Dave Roberts]

So he was a wartime recruit. He'd been headhunted by John Godfrey, Director of Naval intelligence in early 1939. Prior to that, he'd been a failed stockbroker and a journalist for Reuters. He's once famously described himself as the world's worst stockbroker, despite the fact that that was the family business. That's where they'd made all their money.

[Dan Snow]

To be fair, the 1930s, the 20s and 30s had been a bit lumpy for the old stock market, so we got some sympathy with them.

[Dave Roberts]

Yeah, probably not the best time to be a stockbroker. But he turned out to be a better journalist and ended up covering a show trial in Moscow in the mid-30s, where some British engineers were being put on trial for spying. And that caught the attention of the Foreign Office, who then sent him back to Moscow to do a bit of fact finding. And that then brought into the attention of Naval intelligence in July 39, as obviously war is approaching and they're having to gear up for another war just.

[Dan Snow]

Before we launch into the war itself. Is there anything about his character or his pre war experiences that suggested that he'd be particularly good, particularly suited to his role. And when he was recruited, exactly what would that role be?

[Dave Roberts]

So he was recruited as personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, which basically meant that anything that landed on the desk of the Director of Naval Intelligence, we're going to go through Fleming first. So he was going to be at the very heart of the British intelligence services. Pre war, he'd had a very checkered past. He'd lived a bit of a playboy lifestyle. He'd been a disappointment to his mother, his father had been killed in the First World War, and he had an elder brother, Peter, who was fairly successful as an author and a diplomat as well. So he had something to live up to. But I wouldn't say there was anything that really sort of singled him out as an intelligence specialist.

[Dan Snow]

But quite quickly is he. Does he take to the job?

[Dave Roberts]

He does. And I think one of the things that he probably does have is he has an imagination and he has this idea that anything is worth trying. And he. Some of the schemes, some of the plans that he comes up with are some of the most audacious of the war. 30 Commando is probably the most successful. But, you know, he's involved with Operation Postmaster, which is subject of Ungentlemanly Warfare, the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. He's part of that. He's involved in Operation Mincemeats, he's involved in GoldenEye and Tracer, which plans in case Gibraltar falls to the Germans if Spain comes into the war. But probably his most audacious and flamboyant was Operation Ruthless, which is his plan to use a captured German bomber, crash land it in the Channel full of commandos, and then when the German rescue boat comes out to rescue the downed German crew, the commandos leap out, jump on the boat, capture the boat and their Enigma machines and code books and sail it back to the uk.

[Dan Snow]

And what happened to that plan?

[Dave Roberts]

Unbelievably, that plan made it to the point where they were about to take off, but unfortunately it was stopped by weather. Yeah, it seems mad that it would even get across that many tables that it needed to, but it did.

[Dan Snow]

Wow. I love that plan. Okay, let's go back, though. You mentioned a couple of the famous event, Operation Mincemeat. People have heard a podcast about that on this feed a few years ago for the anniversary. Talk to me about Operation Postmaster, featured in the recent Guy Ritchie film. Just while we're on the subject, Fleming appears in that. What's the myth versus Reality on that episode?

[Dave Roberts]

So as I said earlier, Fleming's at the heart of everything that's going on in the intelligence world, whether he's working for Naval intelligence, but he's working hand in hand with SOE, with MI6, with MI5, all those intelligence organizations. He knows what's going on. So it's not surprising that he appears in the film with Operation Postmaster, with Mincemeat. He's always in the background. He's always enabling these things to happen without perhaps necessarily being the brains behind it. He's the one that is pushing it along.

[Dan Snow]

So Operation Postmaster go into the film anyway. They send a group of cutthroat men who they can deny their existence. They're still operating outside of the British military mainstream. They send them down to West Africa to sabotage German U boat support vessels, and Fleming is seen as the man pulling the strings. Is there any truth to that or. It's a great film.

[Dave Roberts]

I love the film and I love the truth version of it. And it's not quite the film. The film I describe as, you know, the old commando comic stories. That's what the film is. The truth is probably a little less flamboyant.

[Dan Snow]

And the truth on that occasion is, did they launch that raid and disable German capabilities to operate in the Atlantic?

[Dave Roberts]

As far as I know, yes, that did happen and they were reasonably successful and it did lead on to other things. And it's one of the very first operations like that is one of the very first times that Britain takes this fight to the Germans. You know, having been thoroughly humiliated by Dunkirk. It's one of those first chances we get to really kick back.

[Dan Snow]

Let's talk about. So Fleming, he's helping send out raids, special forces units down to the coast of Africa, all over the shop. He's tried to crash a load of commandos into the ocean on aircraft, which strikes me as extraordinary. Tell me about this. 30 assault units. What's his idea here?

[Dave Roberts]

So if we look at early 1942, it's probably one of the darkest periods of the war for Britain at that time. America, it hadn't really geared up its war effort yet. It was in the war, but it wasn't fully engaged. Britain had suffered some humiliations with the loss of Singapore and the loss of Benghazi. And the war in the Atlantic still wasn't going in Britain's favor, although Blettsley park were managing to crack codes and so on. Numbers of shipping and tonnage of shipping that was being sunk in early 1942 is going up and up. And in February 42, the Germans are introducing a new Enigma machine, a four rotor machine, which means that Bletchley park will then go blind effectively on naval messages, which could be disastrous for the battle in the Atlantic. So priority for all the intelligence agencies is this new Enigma machine, this Special intelligence, as the Royal Navy called it. So Fleming comes up with this idea and I strongly believe that his main and sole aim for this was to grab signals intelligence, sigint, Enigma codes, Enigma machines, Enigma ciphers, anything to enable Bletchley park to keep reading these messages so that U boats didn't get the upper hand. So March 42nd he writes this proposal. The Director of Naval Intelligence, John Godfrey agrees, pushes it forward to Joint Intelligence Committee, which is the most senior intelligence organization in Britain. And at that meeting in August it is approved that an intelligence assault unit will be formed with a variety of tasks, but the main one being signals intelligence.

[Dan Snow]

That was just shows how important that was. Fleming had obviously learned a lot about the war by this stage. What did he decide to differently or what's he build on in terms of when he puts together this new unit?

[Dave Roberts]

I think one of the things he decides when this new unit comes is that up until this point, any signals intelligence, any Enigma things that have been captured have almost been captured by luck rather than by any sort of planned organization. And it's been done very hit and miss. So some had been captured obviously from U1 10 in May 40. There'd been some raids up in Norway that had come away with some, but he felt really strongly that one organization, one unit specifically trained and targeted with this would be beneficial. And Chief of Combined Operations Louis Manbatten agrees with this, as does MI6. And via MI6, Bletchley park see that this having one specially trained organization under the command of combined operations controlled by Naval Intelligence will be the way to go forward.

[Dan Snow]

And what kind of men is he looking for?

[Dave Roberts]

So as I said earlier, with any of these units you tend to find that the eccentrics, the oddballs, and interestingly, every naval officer that was recruited into 30 Commando were reservists, they were Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve officers. So they were part timers, they weren't career naval officers. And it's a bit of a feeling that no career Navy officer wanted to go anywhere near something this odd, that this was seen as career ending, possibly for a professional naval officer. When it's formed in August 42 though, they choose Robert Ryder as the initial commanding officer and he'd been the CEO for the raid at St Nazaire and won his VC there. So he was someone who was experienced, had a name, could carry some clout, and he recruits similar type men. So he recruits another polar explorer, Quentin Riley, and he also recruits Dunstan Curtis, who was an MGB commander at St Nazaire and won a DSC and Saint Nazaire. So he starts to pull in like minded, slightly odd ball, slightly unique characters, because this was going to be a unique, slightly off the wall private army.

[Dan Snow]

If you like, and I'll pick you up on that. Who's Private Army? I mean, who's tasking these people? Is it Fleming?

[Dave Roberts]

It is. So there was obviously some argument as to who would be in ultimate control and it's put under the control of Combined Operations. But Fleming and Naval Intelligence make it very clear that they are the ones that are choosing the targets. They are the one that are issuing the orders. And the only thing that will come from Combined Operations is things like supplies and recruits and so on. But all the targets, all the planning, all that is coming through Naval Intelligence and all of that is coming through Fleming himself at this moment in time.

[Dan Snow]

So, okay, how does he choose to wield this private army? What are its first few missions?

[Dave Roberts]

So the very first time it appears is in Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa in November 42. A small party had been detailed to assault Dieppe as part of the Dieppe parade to grab some of this four rotor Enigma technology and code books. As we know, Dieppe was a disaster. The men that survived that form the nucleus of this new unit. But the first time they go into action is in Algiers on 8th November 1942. They are tasked with assaulting the port of Algiers, capturing the French admiralty buildings in Algiers and finding whatever signals intelligence they can grab from that. This is Lieutenant Curtis and six marines. They are due to assault Algiers harbour on two old British destroyers. Very typical of the Saint Nazaire diet type raid. They're going to sail these two destroyers in, pull them up alongside in the port. These US infantry are going to leap over the side, take the port, and Curtiss and his marines are going to go off and seize the Admiralty. And all of this is going to happen because the French are just going to go, oh, it's the Americans, we'll let them in. It's fine, don't worry. Doesn't go to plan. The French decide that they are going to open fire on these two destroyers. One of the destroyers carries on into the harbor. The Americans unload, disembark and are very quickly rounded up. Curtis decides, we're not Doing this, his destroyer pulls away and Curtis and his Marines land about six miles to the west of Algiers and decide to, in true Marine style, yomp it into Algiers themselves on foot.

[Dan Snow]

You listen to Dan Snow's history. This is the story of 30 Assault Unit. The story behind Bond all coming up.

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[Dan Snow]

Do they get a good haul of intelligence materials?

[Dave Roberts]

So one of the things is that Curtis refers to the excellent planning that had been. He was surprised at how good the planning was because they arrive in Algiers, they're directed to Italian commissions that are directed to certain targets and they do come up with a decent halt. They walk away with a previously unknown Enigma machine used by the German Abwehr which has very quickly got to Bletchley park and allows them to break some traffic. So their first operational started disastrously does create a decent enough hall for them to be okay, this is something we need. And it begins to get them noticed in the eyes of the planners and they start to be included in bigger and better plans. The next operation is that they head back to Algiers and they head back to Tunisia as the Americans and the British are starting to close in on Rumble's Africa Corps. And again it's courteous. It's about 15 Marines this time in a couple of jeeps and a motorcycle. And part of their operation they basically SAS style and a drive across from the American first Army in the west, cross the German front line and join up with the British 8th army in the east. Having traveled about roughly about 500 miles across desert and salt lakes. 30s commandos role was to seize enemy intel as quickly as possible. So that meant that they had to be on the front line or ahead of the front blind troops. So often they found themselves arriving Alongside first Allied troops into a city. Sometimes over the first Allied troops into towns and cities, particularly when they get to France and Germany, they're liberating villages and towns in France before any Americans or British other troops get there. But in the desert, they didn't like keeping a low profile. So there's stories of them hurtling past British infantry who are very gingerly digging for mines and so on, and suddenly these two jeeps go whizzing past, one of them flying a huge white ensign, as these sailors in jeeps described by somebody in combined operations as authorized and armed expert looters. That's how they were described officially. So, yeah, so they. They caused a bit of a scene. They then are part of Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, and then they're also involved in operation. The operation landing in Salerno in Italy. So they're in the planning for every amphibious landing that now goes on from this point onwards, culminating in the D Day landings, where they take part.

[Dan Snow]

And that role, very simply put, that role just to go as near to the first wave as you can, but just with a very specific job of targeting enemy signals, communications equipment and try and get it back to Bletchley park as soon as they can.

[Dave Roberts]

Yeah, and a list of targets. The list of things they were tasked with obtaining grew and grew. So what you find is that they basically are given a shopping list from all the different departments. So they've obviously got signals intelligence, but then they need to find technology for torpedoes, radar, they need to find technology for mines. Later on, they're tasked with hunting down the V1 sites, rocket technology, midget submarines, new propulsion systems, rocket scientists. So that what happens is they get this shopping list which is produced in the Admiralty, and then these teams are sent out to go and find it. And the issue you have is not only you've got to get there before the enemy can destroy it, you've got to get there before the enemy can destroy it and before your own troops can go in and start to just basically loot, if you like.

[Dan Snow]

We'll come on to another couple of case studies in a second. But in general, were they discharging their weapons? Are they doing a bit of fighting as well, or are they slipping in and slipping out and keeping their heads down?

[Dave Roberts]

They would try and avoid any confrontation if they could because they were very lightly armed. So they were riding around in jeeps. Later on they had some armored cars, but they were lightly armed. They had. Generally they had American weapons because they often operated in the American areas. So it was Easier, but really, if they did get into any trouble, they would sort of back out quite quickly and they became quite adept at that. But they weren't shy of getting involved and getting stuck in. And there are certainly lots of occasions where they get involved in the fighting. In fact, at one point, they get told off for getting involved in the fighting when they shouldn't have been.

[Dan Snow]

Well, let's come on to D Day, the ultimate amphibious landing. What were they doing that day?

[Dave Roberts]

So at the end of 1943, 30 commando were basically recalled to the UK in preparation for D Day. So it was clear then that they were going to be involved right at the heart of the planning. And they're reorganized, they're expanded. Prior to December 43, there'd been a maximum of sort of 50 men in the unit. As they approach D Day, they're expanded to nearly 200. And the plan is that they'll land in three teams. So one team, Pike Force, will land on Juneau beach on D Day, h hour plus 30. So 30 minutes after the first troops land, they land alongside the Canadians on Juneau Beach. Kurt Force will arrive on Gold beach later that day, and then Wolforce, the main body of the unit, will arrive on Utah beach two days later. So that's the plan. And each of those units is tasked with certain targets. So what we know is the black books were prepared with target lists of what they were looking for, where they.

[Dan Snow]

Might find it and did they succeed.

[Dave Roberts]

So, yeah, and unbelievably, Kurt Force and Pike Force land with no casualties at all. That's particularly surprising, I suppose, for Pike Force, who'd land alongside the Canadians, they landed alongside the North Shore Regiment, which was heavily hit with casualties. But Pike Force, this small group, managed to get up onto Juno. They get up off the beach through Saint Auban and end up the day at the chateau at Talville, not having reached their first day target, which was the radar station at Douve, but certainly having made an impact through the. One of the Marines remembers seeing one of the naval officers landing on Juneau beach carrying a walking stick and being more interested in the butterflies he could find in the hedge than actually the shells and the bullets that were whizzing past him at the time, which gives you some idea the caliber of men that were involved.

[Dan Snow]

Eccentric, brave, inquisitive. Yeah. Yes.

[Dave Roberts]

Yeah. And that was one of the things he was describing. He just seemed to be very curious all the time. Apparently, this officer, after D Day, did.

[Dan Snow]

They get useful intel?

[Dave Roberts]

They did. So what they then do is they fan out and the targets become Cherbourg as the main German naval base in the area. But very Quickly, once the V1 rockets start launching on 13 June, the RAF, who hadn't really been interested in this unit at all and didn't want anything to do with it, suddenly put out a request for 30 AU to start finding some of these V1 launch sites and any relevant technology. So on the 17th of June, they find the first V1 site and in fact, the Air Ministry, right directly to the Director of Naval Intelligence, thanking him for 30 AU's efforts and the captures that they've managed to find in that, so they could turn their hand to whatever was needed, really.

[Dan Snow]

Speaking of which, submarine facilities, there's a famous raid that you've talked about in Brittany, isn't there? Tell me about that.

[Dave Roberts]

Obviously, the ports were the main targets. Cherbourg fell around July time 44, and they're then expanding out into Brittany, operating alongside American troops. They're the only British unit, really, that's operating in that area. They're literally driving around trying to find anything, picking up intel on the spot, arriving in towns and villages as the Germans are exiting the other end, being welcomed by these French civilians because they're the first Allied troops that are in there. But there's one instance where they get a bit of intelligence that there's a German radar station up on the north coast at a place called St Pabu, and Lieutenant Hugill is driving around with a small party of marines, there's about half a dozen marines, and he comes across a funeral procession, and they're informed that the four young men who are being buried had just been murdered by the Germans up at Saint Paboo. So Huguel, in true British style, goes, okay, let's go and have a look. Let's go and see what's going on. They get close to the radar station and are told that there's roughly about between 3 and 500 Germans in this radar station. There's Hugill, another lieutenant and six marines. And again, Huguel, in troubadour style, goes, okay, let's try something. Let's pretend that we are the lead element of a very large force and let's go and see if we can get these Germans to surrender. So under the COVID of a white flag, him and two marines walk up to the main gate of this radar station, asked to see the commandant, who turns up with his officers. There's a bit of a standoff. Some of the German officers, particularly a veteran of the Afrika Korps, don't really want to surrender. But Hugo's quite adamant, you know, if you don't surrender, we've got 100 odd tanks over the hill there that will just come and blast you out. So eventually they do give up. And these six Marines take the surrender of over 280 Germans simply by pretending to be part of a much larger force and bluffing these Germans into believing that. It almost doesn't quite go to plan because as the Marines are sort of taking the surrender, one of the Germans, as he walks past, one of the Marines hands him a camera and he's very friendly and says, oh, you know, here's a present for you. And so on. Sandy Powell, who's the Marine, takes the camera, looks at it and sees a very odd looking wire coming out of the top of it. And this German had basically booby trapped the camera. And Powell decided, no, I'll put that aside. He does say that if he'd ever seen that German again, he wouldn't have been held responsible for what he would have done to him. But Hugue earns a DSC and the two Marines earn DSMs for that distinguished Service Cross and Distinguished service medals. So things that they weren't supposed to be doing, you know, they would quite happily. And again, it's just part of this mad story that is 30 commander.

[Dan Snow]

And I'm sure they made a good haul of intelligence material there as well in that radar station.

[Dave Roberts]

Yeah, and a rather large wine cellar as well apparently.

[Dan Snow]

You listen to Dan Snow's history. This is the story of 30 Assault Unit. The story behind Bond. More coming up.

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[Dan Snow]

Tell me about Tambach Castle.

[Dave Roberts]

So the officer I mentioned before who was very interested in the butterflies, Trevor Glanville, who is an interesting character. He is leading a team in Germany. So the spring 1945, Germany's collapsing and he grabs a bit of intelligence from a letter that they find. But there are some German naval documents in a castle called Schloss Tamback somewhere in the area. So he heads off. They arrive at this castle, they go up to the front door, knock on the door, sentry answers. And Glamour says, right, I'd like to see the admiral in, please. And the sentry turns around and goes, which one? There are three of them. And what they'd stumbled across was the entire German Naval archives from 1870, which had been transferred out of sort of Berlin or wherever on the orders of Admiral Donitz to in a sense, try and prove that the Kriegsmarine had not been complicit with the Nazi regime. It was meant to try and prove that the Kriegsmarine had been honorable and professional rather than in any way. But the thing is, Glanville turns up with his team. There are three German admirals there. There is the original countess who owns the castle and is still living in the castle and refuses to allow the Germans to fly a swastika outside the castle. But there are also a group of very fanatical Nazi female German naval women who spend the next day trying to burn all of these archives so that they can't get into the hands of the British. So Glanville ends up having to arm some of the German sailors that are there so that him and his marines can guard the German naval archives from these fanatical women who are trying to burn and destroy them.

[Dan Snow]

Wow.

[Dave Roberts]

It's such a significant haul of information that Fleming himself flies out from London to have a look at it and take charge and try and take a little bit of the glory for it as well.

[Dan Snow]

How is Fleming using this intelligence in the bureaucrats battle in Whitehall? I mean, is he growing in stature and importance as this unit comes up with more and more of the goods?

[Dave Roberts]

I think Fleming finds himself in a difficult position because as the unit grows and grows and expands and becomes more professional and becomes more of a, if you like, a normal in inverted commerce unit, he loses some of his control. It's no longer his own little private army. And he does clash heads with some of the officers because particularly in 1945, he's trying to give operational orders to them. And the Royal Marine colonel who's now in charge is going, no, I'm not taking operational orders from a naval officer who sits behind a desk in the admiralty. So, yeah, he does begin to lose a bit of it. And although he was quite popular with the Marines, he was really not liked by the naval officers in the unit at all.

[Dan Snow]

Tell me how you think that this unit, of all the people that he met during his work in Intelligence, why did this unit, do you think, inspire Fleming's famous James Bond stories?

[Dave Roberts]

Yeah, because one of the things you often see is such a body was the real James Bond. You know, my grandfather was the inspiration of James Bond and all of this. And the clear fact is that James Bond is an amalgamation of so many characters that Fleming came across during his time in intelligence, and some of those yet did indeed work in 30 AU. There's. There's one who was touted as one of the strongest candidates for James Bond, and that's a naval lieutenant commander called Patrick DL Job. He was Scottish, he was an expert skier, he married a Norwegian wife, he was a sailor. And he was, again, a bit of an eccentric. He played the bagpipes regularly in camp at night in France and Germany. When they were operating in France, he had a captured German machine gun welded to the front of his jeep and would lead his small troop of vehicles by standing up in his jeep and waving a fencing sword in the direction he wanted to go. So, yeah, he's seen as sort of one of them. But 30 AU and its exploits and the people involved start to sort of filter into the Bond novels, so you can begin to see connections where Fleming has been involved in things and he's just sort of stored it away to use later on. So, for instance, from Roshi With Love, the whole basis of that story is obviously the hunt for the Spectre machine, which is clearly an Enigma machine. Some of the. The characters, so Tony Hugill, he appears in the man with the Golden Gun, so he's a character in there. In Moonraker, Hugo Drax was involved with the V2 rocket technology and obviously 30 are. You were hunting those scientists and capturing those scientists at the end of the war. So there's definitely a lot of inspiration there for Bond.

[Dan Snow]

What happened to the unit after the war and is its legacy continued?

[Dave Roberts]

So at the end of the war, the unit is disbanded. But you can see inspiration. You can see the legacy of it in modern Special Forces today. So the idea of exploiting enemy intelligence and targets is used and has been used by Special Forces since then. In 2010, the Royal Navy renamed its UK Landing Force Support Group Command. They renamed that 30 Commando Intelligence Exploitation Group in honor of their wartime predecessors. And that unit today is operating slightly in that murkier intelligence, surveillance, electronic warfare aspect of modern warfare. So 30 Commando lives on today. Its legacy can be seen in special forces operations and its legacy in terms of its men that served during the war. Sadly, there's only one survivor that we know of at the moment. That's Tom Bonham and he lives, he lives over in Canada. Very healthily 101 years old.

[Dan Snow]

What a legend. We Brits love. Tell each other these stories about sort of slightly eccentric, daring, very, very brave people who didn't think in straight lines, as Churchill said, didn't. There is something unusual about the Brits. Or would the French, the Americans, the Germans, the Russians all have stories like this about units and ways of going about things. It's just that we're blind to those because of our patriotism.

[Dave Roberts]

I genuinely think there is something in the British psyche, or there certainly was in 1939, 1940, there was definitely something in the British psyche that that meant that we ended up with these types of men and these types of units. Because if you look at everything that's come after that in terms of special forces, it all feeds back to what the British were doing back then. You know, you can see the origins of it back then. So I think it must have been whether it was just circumstances or whether it was something in the psyche, but there was definitely something British about it.

[Dan Snow]

Something very odd going in those big public schools. That's all I can say. Turning out some very strange people. But turns out it was that they were good for the time. It worked. It worked.

[Dave Roberts]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

[Dave Roberts]

Huge pleasure. Dan.

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[Dan Snow]

Know that as history lovers you need more history content than I can possibly give you in a week. So I want to point you to one of my favorite history podcasts at the moment. You've probably seen it on your podcast players already. Well, this is your notice to finally hit play. It's the Legacy Podcast, hosted by the incredible historian Peter Frankenpan, who we've had on the show many times, and the wonderful broadcaster Afua Hirsch. Each season they do a deep dive into the most extraordinary men and women in history, revealing the kind of astonishing details and deep history that I know all you history hit fans love. Did you know that Winston Churchill favored higher taxes for the wealthy? Or that Marilyn Monroe set up her own production company to take on Hollywood? That Bob Marley was a workaholic? Or that Thatcher couldn't afford to work in politics until a Labour bill was passed giving MPs actual salaries? The things they bring to the fore each season really make you reassess these famous names, whether they deserve the reputations they have, good or bad. They've recently done a series on Alan Turing, Gorbachev, Nina Simone, and their current one is on a name that you'll be fairly familiar with, Winston Churchill. So follow Legacy on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. You can binge entire seasons early and ad free by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's a goodie, trust me.