CHARLES FRASER-SMITH: The dangers of note-taking to an agent are, of course, immense. Discovery would be a death sentence and the same goes for the written instructions given to agents. So I came up with a couple of practical solutions. First, flash paper - paper impregnated with a chemical that allows it to burn instantly without ash or smoke. It just disappears. Quite magical. In an example of lateral thinking, Fraser-Smith used a special left-hand thread for the disguised screw-off top of a hidden-document container; he suggested this would prevent discovery by the "unswerving logic of the German mind", as no German would ever think of trying to unscrew something the wrong way. CHARLES FRASER-SMITH: We made some cursory chit-chat about my talk and the next day I received a message to pop by Rice’s office. CHARLES FRASER-SMITH: I’ll be honest. I loved my work. It was based on secrecy and deception, yes. But secrecy and deception in fighting the greatest evil the world had known in a generation. No shame in that.

CHARLES FRASER-SMITH: It was all most peculiar. I couldn’t quite get a straight answer and, for the first three weeks, I appeared to have been assigned quite ordinary work pen-pushing in the Ministry’s textile office. NARRATOR: If all of this sounds a bit familiar - a bit James Bond - well there’s a reason for that. CHARLES FRASER-SMITH: Chemical firelighters, chocolate, bandages, map, compass, miniature saw, benzedrine tablets. NARRATOR: When France surrenders there are still boats traveling between Casablanca and Britain. But not many, and the war in the Atlantic is heating up.

Fraser-Smith was not the only gadget-master working for British intelligence during World War II. The SOE had various secret research and development laboratories including Station IX at the Natural History Museum and Station XII at the Frythe Hotel. Christopher Clayton Hutton of MI9, a clandestine unit within A-Force which specialised in escape and evasion, was also an inventor and deception-theorist. Major Jasper Maskelyne, a stage magician, also developed secret sabotage and subterfuge devices for MI-9. Operation Mincemeat Charles continued with his Brethren faith and missionary work and after meeting Selina Richardson remarried in 1966. In the 1970's, with the approval of the Ministry and clearance from the Official Secrets Act he wrote several books about his wartime experiences and his personal life before and after the war. He donated the royalties to charity, becoming involved in many including Save the Children Fund and UNICEF. Fraser was also involved in the intelligence operation codenamed Operation Mincemeat, [6] which was designed to drop a body, carrying false papers to mislead the Nazis, off the Spanish coast. He was tasked with designing a trunk, 6' 2" long and 3' wide, to carry a "deadweight" of 200lb that would be preserved in dry ice. When the dry ice evaporated, it filled the canister with carbon dioxide and drove out any oxygen, thus preserving the body without refrigeration. The plot was the basis of the book (and later film) The Man Who Never Was and the 2021 film Operation Mincemeat. [7] Later life [ edit ]

The two masterminds of the operation were Charles Cholmondeley and Ewan Montagu, two men with what Churchill called "corkscrew minds". Once this temporary appointment was completed, Charles and Blanche decided they too would like a holiday before returning to their home, Khemisset, in 1939. NARRATOR: The British law that binds all who sign it to 30 years of silence about government work, on pain of imprisonment, a pre-condition of spycraft. Interestingly, during these times with the threat of an invasion by the German army and the on-going bombing of towns and cities, people were cautioned not to discuss aspects of their daily lives. CHARLES FRASER-SMITH: There’s an RAF saying: ‘Birds and fools fly by day, but only fools by night.’

Careful How You Tie Your Shoelaces

Shaving brushes and, hairbrushes hiding useful objects in the handle such as maps printed on handkerchiefs and silk tissue. Smoking pipes and dominoes also carried maps within them. The pencils reveal their secret compartment and internal items – which were kept hidden from the public under the Official Secrets Act until 1975. Only one chapter here is devoted to Charles’ “Q” activities, since Fraser-Smith's previous book ( The Secret War of Charles Fraser-Smith) had already been published.

Many people have been offered up as the basis for James Bond’s characterization. Most being heroic war time figures or associates of Fleming. Several will probably be correct. Similarly, Fleming’s books were understandably influenced by his time as a naval intelligence officer during the Second World War. CHARLES FRASER-SMITH: If I made any contribution to the war effort it was in assisting the unimaginably brave, largely unsung heroes like that: Resistance fighters, SOE agents, ordinary soldiers behind enemy lines. Mine was a secret war, but not without honor. There were four different maps used which meant that four differently numbered pencils were made so they could be correctly identified by those in the know. Pencil No 101 contained a general map of Germany, while pencils numbered 102, 103 and 104 contained maps showing more detailed escape routes to the west or south of Germany, such as into Switzerland. Three examples of these maps are shown above (Photograph No 3). NARRATOR: Fraser-Smith died in 1992. The following is a recreation based on his memoirs and the writings of those who knew him. His words are spoken by an actor. But the stories contained in them are absolutely real.The novelist Ian Fleming also worked in similar secret circumstances during the war and was aware of Charles Fraser-Smith and his accomplishments. When writing his novels after the war Ian Fleming created the character 'Q' who devised the gadgets for 007 in the James Bond stories and the character was modelled on Charles Fraser-Smith. CHARLES FRASER-SMITH: Harmless fun I suppose. But is there really a call for quite so many superficial sex encounters? CHARLES FRASER-SMITH: Then, have the repaired plane take off and join a squadron of real German bombers returning from a raid over southern England. A Trojan bomber if you like. At a certain point, the crew would activate fireworks hidden in the wings to simulate engine trouble, and would then fake a crash landing at sea, somewhere off the coast of France. NARRATOR: In World War II, Britain possessed a unique asset in its fight against the Axis powers. A civil servant officially posted to the Ministry of Supply with a secret mission: to provide British agents and servicemen and women with the secret devices, gadgets needed to survive undercover. Meet Charles Fraser-Smith.