Above: the first day cover from Bletchley Park Post Office. Courtesy Bletchley Park
It’s a dark night in 1940 and a handpicked crew flies out in a bomber from Dover to capture Enigma codebooks from a German boat. A tough bachelor able to swim well is in the pilot’s seat, wearing a German uniform, and instructed to crash the German bomber into the sea in order to lure an enemy boat to rescue him. When they gain access on board, they are to overcome the crew and seize the cipher material.
As it happens, Operation Ruthless never came to fruition because of bad weather, but this cunning plan devised by Ian Fleming in 1940 is an intriguing early example of the Naval Intelligence officer’s daring plots that later gave birth to the fictional Secret Agent 007, James Bond.
Staff at Bletchley Park – the centre for World War Two codebreaking, now a museum – have decided to celebrate their special connection to James Bond by making a first day cover for the brand new James Bond stamps released by Royal Mail on January 8 2008.
The stamps mark the centenary year of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond and a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy during WWII.
“It came up in our archives,” explained Terry Mitchell, Secretary for Chapman and Mitchell Covers Ltd who work for the Post Office at Bletchley Park. “Of course all records about Bletchley were destroyed as it was a big secret, so it’s just now and again that things turn up – things that people wrote down and kept hold of.”
“This appeared in the middle of last year when we were looking for things to do with the centenary, so we started talking to our ‘Ian Fleming people’, and one of them came up with this. You just never know what will turn up; we thought it was fascinating.”
The Lektor machine in From Russia With Love was based on the Enigma. Courtesy Bletchley Park
The need to capture one of the coding machines or Enigma material being used by the German Navy was crucial to winning the Battle of the Atlantic, in which U-boats were attacking convoys bringing essential supplies to Britain. The Allies needed to find out where the U-boats were assembling and when they might attack the convoys, but their codes were extremely difficult to break. Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, became the national centre for codebreaking.
“It would have been one of his first ‘Bond’ type plans as it was very early on in the war,” continued Terry, “when Fleming had just been recruited. They just couldn’t crack the German Naval code. The Luftwaffe’s was easy – they were just so arrogant they didn’t think their security needed to be so good! But the Navy was very strict in discipline. And at that time North Atlantic convoys were under great threat.”
Details of the plan will feature on a limited edition first day cover in the style of a book jacket, in keeping with the stamp designs, which feature different editions of Fleming’s most famous novels, such as Casino Royale and From Russia With Love.
The wording of the plan itself is highly reminiscent of the famous character – a tough bachelor and accomplished linguist, offering the tantalising idea that Bond was born at Bletchley. Fleming probably visited Bletchley during the course of the war, but any records of it are not known.
However, the reaction of key codebreakers at Bletchley, Alan Turing and Peter Twinn, to the abandoning of the plan, are recounted by Frank Birch, Head of German Naval Section at Bletchley Park.
“Turing and Twinn came to me like undertakers cheated of a nice corpse… all in a stew about the cancellation of Operation Ruthless,” he said.
The first day cover is available from Bletchley Park Post Office for £15 plus £1.50 p&p.
The Imperial War Museum is hosting an exhibition on Ian Fleming from April 17 – March 1 2008. Photo by Horst Tappe/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. © Getty Images
Fleming's Operation Ruthless plan
TOP SECRET. For Your Eyes Only. 12 September 1940.
To: Director Naval Intelligence
From: Ian Fleming
Operation Ruthless
I suggest we obtain the loot by the following means:
1. Obtain from Air Ministry an air-worthy German bomber.
2. Pick a tough crew of five, including a pilot, W/T operator and word-perfect German speaker. Dress them in German Air Force Uniform, add blood and bandages to suit.
3. Crash Plane in the Channel after making SOS to rescue service.
4. Once aboard rescue boat, shoot German crew, dump overboard, bring rescue boat back to English port.
In order to increase the chances of capturing an R or M (Räumboot – a small minesweeper; Minensuchboot – a large minesweeper) with its richer booty, the crash might be staged in mid-Channel. The Germans would presumably employ one of this type for the longer and more hazardous journey.
NB. Since attackers will be wearing enemy uniform, they will be liable to be shot as franc-tireurs if captured, and incident might be fruitful field for propaganda. Attackers’ story will therefore be that it was done for a lark by a group of young hot-heads who thought the war was too tame and wanted to have a go at the Germans. They had stolen the plane and equipment and had expected to get into trouble when they got back. This will prevent suspicions that party was after more valuable booty than a rescue boat.
