Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming’s covert force was the only intelligence-gathering unit trained and armed well enough for a daring raid on a Nazi radar installation in Norway

In 1942, a Whitehall official visited the notorious safebreaker and cat burglar John Ramsey in Peterhead prison.

The civil servant had an intriguing offer from a naval intelligence officer called Ian Fleming. If Ramsey was prepared to put his criminal expertise to use in the war effort, he could expect a pardon. Ramsey, who had learnt to use explosives in the mining industry, readily agreed.


He was soon training with 30 Assault Unit (30AU), a new covert force formed by Fleming to seize Nazi military technology and scientists.
Safe-breaking skills were essential to Fleming’s plans. The Germans kept blueprints for missiles and radar equipment in bank vaults. An expert was needed to blow the safes. Ramsey is said to have cracked 14 in one day while in action in Italy.

Ian Fleming in Navy uniform

The blurring of crime and war may have gone further. Some 30AU members suggest that looted gold and diamonds found in the vaults they raided were seen as a perk of the job. After the unit was disbanded, several men, looking for work, may have utilised their skill set on the other side of the law. Ramsey himself reverted to his old trade and was soon back in jail.

Unsurprisingly, 30AU’s secrecy and unusual recruitment methods were met with suspicion. George Patton, the US general, dismissed them as ‘a bunch of Limey pirates’.

Even a member of 30AU described their exploits as ‘running around Europe doing what we want’. They were, he said, ‘ghosts on the battlefield’.
Fleming went on to use several colourful personalities from the unit as templates for the character of James Bond, but the existence of 30AU itself was kept secret even after the war, robbing it of a place in history.

Now, for the first time, a British thriller, Age Of Heroes, puts on record the unit’s achievements. Starring Sean Bean and Danny Dyer, the film depicts a daring raid on a Nazi radar installation in Norway. Fleming’s covert force was the only intelligence-gathering unit trained and armed well enough to fight its way to targets.

Chillingly, he signed an order saying: ‘The necessity for avoiding or eliminating witnesses to successful action… is emphasised’. The message was unambiguous: they had a licence to kill.

The unit’s motto was ‘attain by surprise’. Most operations were behind enemy lines, with groups dropped by parachute, landing from sea, or infiltrating on land ahead of Allied forces. Fleming, who was initially in charge of planning missions with Lt Cdr Jim Glanville, called the unit his ‘Red Indians’.
Suspicion of 30AU was compounded by its apparent independence from frontline command. Groups usually consisted of two jeeps, a naval officer, between five and eight Marines, and often a scientist to identify equipment and papers. The officer carried a ‘black list’ of targets. Orders allocating men to a specific target were only issued at the last minute.

One operation in Brittany ended in disaster. A 30AU truck carrying two captured German torpedoes exploded when bumping over a booby-trapped level crossing during a hasty exit. Two men on board were flung on to a minefield. A second truck and accompanying jeeps could not stop to recover the bodies from such a dangerous position.

In its first incarnation, 30AU saw action in North Africa, Italy, the Greek Islands, Corsica and Norway. An enlarged 30AU took part in the D-Day landings. Among their targets were V1 flying bomb launch facilities in France and the Netherlands, which they photographed and documented, before calling in Spitfires to obliterate the sites.

By the time of the Allied invasion of Germany, 30AU had 400 men. The biggest prize was in sight: the Nazis’ futuristic military technology, including long-range versions of the V2 missile, aimed at hitting New York. It wasn’t just the Allies who wanted the expertise of Nazi scientists; the advancing Soviet army was racing to secure it, too.

The unit captured a previously unknown facility north of Cologne, which was working on rockets, guided missiles, along with jet and rocket-propelled aircraft. The men of 30AU also captured top scientists, including Hellmuth Walter, designer of the Messerschmitt rocket plane prototype, and Herbert Wagner, who created the Henschel Hs293 guided glide bomb.

The final tally included 25 U-boats and two destroyers, captured at Bremen dockyards, and jet rockets and planes, torpedoes and mines. In May 1945, Fleming’s Red Indians took their biggest scalp: Admiral Karl Dönitz, who succeeded as Führer after Hitler killed himself. Contemporary accounts dispute 30AU’s part in his capture, but the unit’s history confirms it.

In its first incarnation, 30AU saw action in North Africa, Italy, the Greek Islands, Corsica and Norway. An enlarged 30AU took part in the D-Day landings. Among their targets were V1 flying bomb launch facilities in France and the Netherlands, which they photographed and documented, before calling in Spitfires to obliterate the sites.

By the time of the Allied invasion of Germany, 30AU had 400 men. The biggest prize was in sight: the Nazis’ futuristic military technology, including long-range versions of the V2 missile, aimed at hitting New York. It wasn’t just the Allies who wanted the expertise of Nazi scientists; the advancing Soviet army was racing to secure it, too.



The unit captured a previously unknown facility north of Cologne, which was working on rockets, guided missiles, along with jet and rocket-propelled aircraft. The men of 30AU also captured top scientists, including Hellmuth Walter, designer of the Messerschmitt rocket plane prototype, and Herbert Wagner, who created the Henschel Hs293 guided glide bomb.

The final tally included 25 U-boats and two destroyers, captured at Bremen dockyards, and jet rockets and planes, torpedoes and mines. In May 1945, Fleming’s Red Indians took their biggest scalp: Admiral Karl Dönitz, who succeeded as Führer after Hitler killed himself. Contemporary accounts dispute 30AU’s part in his capture, but the unit’s history confirms it.
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