CommanderBond.net

From SILHOUETTE MAN, on the CBn main page...

James Bond in Contemporary WWII and Cold War Events

'Casino Royale,' 'Thunderball,' 'You Only Live Twice,' and more...

Nice work, as always.

Another excellent work!

Bond also seems to have taken part in the battel for Berlin in 1945 (unless he just made it up to confuse Scaramanga):

James Bond drank down the rest of his beer and got slowly to his feet.He walked towards Scaramanga and was about to pass him when the man reached out a languid left arm and caught him at the biceps. He held the snout of his gun to his nose, sniffing delicately. The expression in the dead brown eyes was far away. He said, 'Mister, there's something quite extra about the smell of death. Care to try it?' He held out the glittering gun as if he was offering James Bond a rose.

Bond stood quite still. He said, 'Mind your manners. Take your hand off me.'

Scaramanga raised his eyebrows. The flat leaden gaze seemed to take in Bond for the first time.

He released his grip.

James Bond went on round the edge of the counter. When he came opposite the other man, he found the eyes were now looking at him with faint, scournful curiosity. Bond stopped. The sobbing of the girl was the crying of a small dog. Somewhere down the street a 'Sound System' - a loudspeaker record player - began braying calypso.

Bond looked the man in the eye. He said, 'Thanks. I've tried it. I recommend the Berlin vintage. 1945.' He smiled a friendly, only slightly ironical smile. 'But I expect you were too young to be at that tasting.'

'The Man With The Golden Gun', Ian Fleming, 1965; excerpt from Coronet paperback edition 1989

Would have been interesting to hear how the Russians got on with Bond during the fight, or if he was working undercover then.

Seems like these are all teasers for Bond stories we would have like to have read more about.

And a very good, interesting article. Thank you!

What a great read, and that was a nice find, Trident.


Now that's a great idea! I would love to read about Bond during the War.

What an excellent read. As stated, it would be very interesting to have novels about Bond's pre Casino Royale days.

This was very well done.

Now for my little contribution to Bond's service history. So far as I know, Fleming's first reference to Bond's military rank is found in Chapter Four of Moonraker. When I went through Fleming's manuscript at the Lilly Library, I was interested to see that Fleming initially had M introduce Bond as "Colonel Bond." This would have made him either a Royal Marine, or, more likely, a former army offier. It wasn't until Fleming was doing pen and ink corrections on the manuscript that he changed Bond to a commander, RNVR. This suggests that Fleming did not originally envision Bond as having served in the Royal Navy. It struck me in reading LALD that Strangways had been a lieutenant commander in the RNVR, yet the two men never mentioned their common background.

The title "commander" certainly has quite a bit more dash to it. What would our man have been without it?

Most interesting information. A Colonel Bond? Somehow I'd imagine a colonel to be a little older and with a more straightforward military career than Bond. With a colonel I'd always think of somebody whose whole adult life is spend in the army. Although Bond is a Commander, his bearing isn't paricularly that of a military drill type IMO. The RNVR for me always explained this lack of military air. While serving during the war, he wasn't a soldier by profession. Did the British Army and Royal Marines even have a volunteer service during WWII similar to the RNVR?

This post has been edited by Trident: 9 August 2007 - 11:41

Perhaps at one time Fleming envisioned Bond as having been in the Special Operations Group of Commandos that Fleming coordinated for a while whose mission was to seek out German targets with intelligence value and raid them (I forget what it was called, see Pearson or Lycett's bios, but it was similar to the MOB group that the villain in the story Octopussy was attached to).