The 'Other' Fleming: Peter Fleming

Doing some reading and figure I'll write this little missive.

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In some respects Peter Fleming was more Bond than Ian could have hoped to be (not that IF hoped to be Bond of course). Pre-war a successful writer but also an adventurer, going all over the place and having a damn good time doing it. Like his brother, he joined up come the start of war though in the Army.

And it's eighty years ago this summer Fleming carved his name into a top secret part of this country's history that only lately has come to the fore. When I was dong my 2007-08 dissertation on resistance and anti-invasion preparations in 1940, Fleming's name cropped up a great deal. During the Norway debachle in April 1940, Fleming was working with prototype commando units and returning to England was tasked with looking into seeing if the Home Guard could be used as guerrilla troops.

Around the time of Dunkirk if not before, MI(R) -Research- set about under Churchill's auspices (or not, the genesis is a touch murky) into creating a resistance organisation in the event of invasion. This would be the only such organisation set-up in the war (all the others in France, Norway etc were created after invasion of course). Cover-wise they were called Auxiliary Units to cover their true function and on paper were Home Guard units with three main HQ's for Scotland, England and Wales.

Throughout that summer, recruits (and most of the AU's came from everyday men, farmers, doctors, barristers etc, men who would know their town/village intimately) would go to Coleshill House in the Home Counties for training etc. AU's would in theory be based within an Operating Base, essentially a bunker with weapons of most types. Germany invades, they go underground and come up afterwards to harry and embarrass the enemy (as the wording went). Life expectancy was maximum seven days and when caught, would be executed by the Germans as 'terrorists' or agent provocateur.

Fleming worked with a man called Andrew Thorne (as befitting a Bond-type character as anyone could) to form XII Corps Observation Unit (the fore-runner to what became the AU). Fleming based himself at a farm in Kent known as The Garth and started training his men. Someone described it as Boys Own stuff if not Boy Scouts, they used bow and arrows sometimes, they set traps, they lay in wait etc. Once they snuck into General [later Field Marshal] Montgomery's HQ and lay time pencils. Monty congratulated them but said his security was too good for them to have done it, that was when the pencils went off.

Fleming (like many of the instructors) had to make it up at the start. There was no booklet, no training course, so he used his experience up until now. His men made home-made mortars, and other devices.

As the summer started properly, Fleming moved on from the AU's. Strictly speaking they were stood down by 1942 but were reactivated in 1944 in case the Germans countered D-Day by landing on the Isle of Wight. Early on though, many of the men joined the Special Operations Executive and served all over occupied Europe, including the actor Anthony Quayle. Quayle was based up north in Northumberland than with SOE in Yugoslavia.
The AU's remained highly secret until about ten years ago. Most of what has been written was not available to me in 2008 for example. A couple of books including Fleming's "Invasion 1940" and David Lampe's "The Last Ditch" in the 50s and 60s respectively mentioned them but even those who took part, even though there was no invasion, kept quiet about it all their lives. Not every man went into SOE, probably a handful, the rest went back to their day jobs.

Fleming served briefly in Greece and then the remainder of the war in the Far East and Asia. Working on deception plans and operations (such as with the legendary Chindits). Postwar he received the OBE.

Fleming had of course married actress Celia Johnson in 1935 and then died aged only 64 in 1971. I believe it's now his children/offspring who look after Gildrose and the legacy.

For years this facet of our history has long fascinated me, that ordinary men (and women) were prepared to sacrifice themselves if the worst happened. And sacrifice it would've been.

Peter, in contrast to Ian of course, seems to have slipped away nowadays like most great writers and men do. Being the 80th anniversary of Dunkirk, Battle of Britain and all of which inbetween, why not remember him, just a little.



Fleming in the Far East