Operation ruthless
Operation Ruthless was an aborted intelligence operation led by Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming during World War II to steal code books from the German Navy for the German rotor cipher machine Enigma , which were needed in Bletchley Park .
On September 12, 1940, Ian Fleming informed the Director of Naval Intelligence of his plan, which initially provided for a German bomber from the Air Ministry , with five German-speaking agents, including a pilot and radio operator, in Luftwaffe uniforms and with blood and bandages equipped and after a call for help, let the aircraft crash into the English Channel in a controlled manner. The agents were then to be rescued by a German lifeboat. On the boat it should come to the shooting and the disposal of the bodies in the water, after which the trip in the lifeboat to an English port was planned. A variant of the plan was to drop the bomber further away to attract a larger German ship. If captured, the agents were scheduled to die, impersonating hotheaded youngsters who had stolen planes and equipment and expected trouble if they returned.
aftermath
On September 18, 1940, the operation was canceled, as Frank Birch noted in a memorandum dated September 20, 1940. Nevertheless, in March 1941, in the course of Operation Claymore , it was possible to capture code books from the Krebs off Norway. Code breakers at Bletchley Park eventually succeeded the slump in the Naval Enigma .
Lieutenant Commander Fleming used his experience in the secret service after the end of World War II as a writer and invented the character James Bond . Operation Ruthless documents were made available to the public in 1996, long after Fleming's death.
Web links
- Documents from ADM 223/463 at turing.org (English)