Sunday, September 23, 2012

Meet The Spy Who Inspired The Creation Of James Bond

One of Britain’s greatest spies of the Second World War, a secret agent who went by the code name White Rabbit, has been identified as the inspiration behind Ian Fleming’s James Bond.
He’s the dashing secret agent who surrounded himself with women, ruthlessly despatched his enemies and had a series of swashbuckling adventures.
It is not James Bond but a real Second World War hero who has now been identified as the inspiration behind Ian Fleming’s fictional creation.
A new biography of Wing Commander Forest “Tommy” Yeo-Thomas, one of Britain’s greatest secret agents of the war, claims the writer based the character of 007 on the spy and recreated many of his real life experiences in his novels.
Yeo-Thomas, who was known by the code name White Rabbit, was parachuted into occupied France three times – after one mission reporting back directly to Winston Churchill – before being captured and tortured by the Gestapo.
He was taken to Buchenwald concentration camp but managed to escape and reach the Allied lines.
His link to Bond is revealed in a document discovered at the National Archives, in west London, by historian Sophie Jackson during her research into a new account of Yeo-Thomas’ exploits, Churchill’s White Rabbit: The True Story of a Real-Life James Bond.
In a dossier of recently declassified documents, she found a memo from May 1945 in which Fleming, who also worked in intelligence during the war, briefs colleagues on the agent and his successful escape from the Nazis.

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