Book Review: Ian Fleming and SOE's Operation Postmaster

The True Story Behind James Bond

I am not, as my longtime readers will know, much of a film buff. I grew up with no TV, and my viewing of most of pop culture was fragmented and very much external to the mainstream. Which is why I knew Bond, James Bond from books before the movies. Also, have a strong preference for Sean Connery as Bond, but that’s another topic for another time.

I picked this book up when my husband and I were chatting about a movie, but not a Bond movie. There was a movie made (I think? I didn’t go look it up) about Churchill’s development of the SOE. Based on our conversation, I picked up a book, Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, and Amazon helpfully suggested Brian Lett’s Ian Fleming and SOE’s Operation Postmaster as a good option to go with it. As it happened, I read this one first, and am just getting into the other.

This is an engaging read. The bits of connections to James Bond were interesting, although I think the book could have stood very well on it’s own without them. However, they do likely broaden the audience that would be interested and pick the book up, and that’s a good thing, not just for the author making money, but the readers who will doubtless learn about an intriguing bit of history.

The book details at length what Operation Postmaster did, and how, and it’s a great story. The men involved were no angels, but heroes nonetheless. To pull off what they did? How they did? Seriously, this is a masterclass in misdirection, subterfuge, and persistence. As an author myself, there is a lot of material here which would blend beautifully into fiction, and some which would be derided as too over-the-top in fiction… but it’s true!

The book was written recently, as the British Government had decided for the reasons of ongoing conflicts, they would not give away the secrets of the SOE and how they operated. For decades after the war, then, this story could not be told. Which may be why James Bond came into being, as Ian Fleming took elements of the Operation Postmaster and the men who conducted it, and turned it into thinly-veiled fiction.

Whatever his motivation, Fleming’s books garnered much attention, and also derision, as Bond seemed unreal and impossible to the reading public. Perhaps, though, there are men who fight and fought like that hero who seems as though he was made up from a vivid imagination.

I’d say that if you are looking to write a story about espionage, guerilla action, or just plain bloody-mindness of men who persevered in the face of utter impossible odds, this would be a useful book to read. If you just want to read a fascinating piece of history, this is an easy book to read, one that will fill in some less-known parts of the global conflict raging during the period we call World War II.

Bonus that it’s in Kindle Unlimited right now, so if you have that, you can try it for free. I wasn’t sure about starting in on the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare soon after reading Ian Fleming and SOE’s Operation Postmaster, but so far there is almost no overlap other than historical characters (like Gubbins) and I’m enjoying it as well.