‘British Naval Intelligence’ and 007

Review by Bill Doughty

British Royal Navy Commander James Bond, Agent 007, enters the battle space, impeccably dressed. Trained to defend himself, he carries the latest hidden weapons and devices. Bond gets the best intelligence and communication technology. He trusts his American friend Felix Leiter of the CIA, and they often work together. James Bond (almost) always has secret information to be one step ahead of his enemies. He is licensed to kill.

Commander Ian Fleming

It’s not surprising that 007 is a creation of imaginative thinker Ian Fleming, who served in British naval intelligence during the Second World War.

Fleming’s real world contributions during and after the war, along with those of dozens of other personnel, are featured in “British Naval Intelligence” by Andrew Boyd (Seaforth Publishing, 2020). Fleming was the “most visible example of an extraordinary range of recruits” in British Intelligence at the beginning of World War II as Hitler threatened the world.

This book details the strategies, tactics, and methods developed from the late 19th century through two world wars. It concludes with Britain’s war in the Falklands and the end of the Cold War. Understandably, much of the book is devoted to operations, equipment, leaders, events, and policy during WWII.

One through-line is the Anglo-American intelligence relationship between the two navies. Boyd examines a “difficult” partnership early on, but shows how key leaders came together to build trust and confidence as both the Royal Navy and U.S. Navy evolved, built alliances, and confronted enemies like Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union.

Vice Adm. Ghormley confers with Adm. Nimitz, circa 1943. (NHHC)

American readers will be interested in Nimitz’s “logical and generous” leadership in integrating intelligence operations, as well as in the roles of Adm. Harold Stark, Rear Adm. Robert Ghormley’s, and Capt. Carl Holden’s roles. Boyd describes a “notoriously anglophobic Adm. Ernest King,” Chief of Naval Operations during WWII.

Boyd shows how intelligence teams developed aerial photographic surveillance, codebreaking, prisoner-of-war interrogations, shoreline intelligence, Secret Intelligence Service monitoring of ports, other signals intelligence, and “operational research” – both successes and failures throughout the 20th century.  Over time, submarines, satellites, and towed array technology became invaluable to both British and American efforts.

“British Naval Intelligence” naturally spotlights operations and issues from a Royal Navy perspective, with a heavy emphasis on the North Atlantic, Barents Sea, and Mediterranean. Boyd writes this about Operation Torch, the allied amphibious invasion of Northwest Africa, pictured below: “Torch was the first British-American combined operation undertaken before D-Day, and it had consequences that remain underestimated.”

Boyd also describes the importance of shared intelligence at turning points: Battle of the Coral Sea, Battle of Midway, and Operation Overlord, the Normandy landings.

As WWII ended, Britain and the United States adapted to a “new world order” in facing new Soviet threats. Once again, Ian Fleming played a key role, helping to create the Joint Intelligence Bureau in August 1945.

The Cold War saw a continued warm and collaborative relationship between the two navies. British intelligence succeeded by “fostering an effective post-war relationship with the American intelligence agencies and leveraging the vastly greater American collection capability.”

Lord Mountbatten (second from left)..

On the American side, Bill Donovan, who had led the Office of Strategic Services, helped create the CIA. Across the Atlantic, Rear Adm. John Inglis became director of Naval Intelligence, colloquially known as “Room 39.” The allies focused on “the ever-growing threat posed by the Soviet submarine force.”

Cooperation was, as always, dependent on personalities – “notably the personal relationships between Lord Louis Mountbatten, who became First Sea Lord in 1955, and his American opposite number, Admiral Arleigh Burke, and the fanatical eccentric architect of the US Navy nuclear submarine programme, Rear Admiral Hiram Rickover.”

Boyd concludes his massive, 776-page book with the Falklands War, where “the strengths and weaknesses of British intelligence were evident in the only major engagement between the Argentine navy and the British task force, which led to the sinking of the Argentine cruiser Belgrano by the SSN Conqueror.”

Boyd’s comprehensive history of British naval intelligence in the previous century brings rich insights into the important Anglo-American relationship, both good and bad.

Weaknesses of American intelligence were personified during that era by Chief Warrant Officer John Walker, communication watch officer at COMSUBLANT in Norfolk, Virginia. Walker, Boyd shows, was a wannabe 007 James Bond spy who set up an espionage ring of associates (including his son) and sold out his country by providing “a vast amount of communications and cryptographic data, giving access to strategic plans, intelligence assessments, day-to-day operations, and technical capability.” Walker conspired and colluded with the Soviets starting in 1967 and then with the Russians through the 70s into the 80s, creating untold damage to the West’s anti-submarine warfare efforts.

Even 007’s creator, Ian Fleming, might have difficulty contemplating the depth, breadth, and depravity of the Walker spy debacle.

“British Naval Intelligence” adds new information to the history of the British navy and to the development of war-winning naval intelligence. This short and admittedly U.S.-centric Navy Reads review can only scratch the surface of this important and enlightening book.