| World War II | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Combatants | |
Allies: United Kingdom Canada New Zealand Australia France China Soviet Union United States
|
Axis: Germany Italy Japan Hungary Romania Bulgaria Finland Croatia
|
| Commanders | |
 Winston Churchill Josef Stalin Chiang Kai-Shek Franklin Roosevelt Charles De Gaulle
|
Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hirohito Hideki Tojo
|
| Casualties & Losses | |
| Military dead: Over 16,000,000 Civilian dead: Over 45,000,000 Total dead: Over 61,000,000 |
Military dead: Over 8,000,000 Civilian dead: Over 4,000,000 Total dead: Over 12,000,000 |
In 1941, James Bond lied about his age in order to enter the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during World War II, from which he emerged with the rank of Commander before joining MI6.
Impacts on the Bond Universe[]
Villains[]
Several Bond villains served in World War II for both the Allies and Axis. Mr. Big fought for the United States army as an in-field agent. He later became a double-agent and trained in the Soviet Union before returning to the USA as an agent of SMERSH. Sir Hugo Drax was an officer in the Wehrmacht who fought in the Ardennes Campaign in late 1944. He was shot by a Luftwaffe fighter off his motorcycle, in disguise as a British dispatch rider, leaving him with a disfigured face and temporary amnesia. Colonel Rosa Klebb fought in the Soviet army as a junior officer.
During World War II Dr. Julius No purchased the island of Crab Key, off the coast of Jamaica, where he re-started a defunct guano business, selling the guano to Allied governments for huge profits. German officer Herr von Hammerstein, who ordered the killing of Judy Havelock's parents, fled from Germany at the end of the war and ended up in Cuba.
Ernst Stavro Blofeld had foreseen World War II. He made copies of top-secret wires and sold them to the Nazis just prior to the German invasion of Poland in 1939. He destroyed all records of his existence, then moved to neutral Turkey. During the war, he sold information to both sides. After the defeat of Erwin Rommel in Africa, he decided to only back the Allied war effort; ironically, he was awarded numerous medals by the Allied powers after the war's end. After the war, Blofeld temporarily moved to South America before founding SPECTRE.
Major Dexter Smythe coerced and later killed Bond's father-figure, Hannes Oberhauser, (who taught Bond to ski in Austria before the war) near the end of World War II in order to steal Nazi gold bullion which he used to pay for a life of luxury in Jamaica. Miss Maria Freudenstein was born in France in 1935, the illegitimate daughter of a woman who later became a member of the French Resistance during the war.
Allies[]
Lieutenant Colonel Bill Tanner earned distinguishment during his military career in World War II leading to his appointment to the position of Chief-of-Staff of MI6. During the war Bond's best friend in the CIA, Felix Leiter, served in the US Marine Corps. Japanese secret agent Tiger Tanaka served the Japanese Imperial Army and by the war's end he was in the process of training as a Kamikaze pilot.
Both Enrico Colombo and Marc-Ange Draco were awarded the King's medal for their efforts during World War II in resistance fighting against the Axis.
Inspiration[]
Ian Fleming admitted to being inspired by true or partially-true events that took place during his career at the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty.
Most notably, and the basis for Casino Royale, was a trip to Lisbon that Fleming and the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral Godfrey, took during World War II en route to the United States. While there they went to the Estoril Casino in Estoril, which, due to the neutral status of Portugal had a number of spies of warring regimes present. Fleming claimed that while there he was cleaned out by a "chief German agent" at a table playing Chemin de Fer, however, Admiral Godfrey tells a different story, that Fleming only played Portuguese businessmen and that afterwards he had fantasised about them being German agents and the excitement of cleaning them out.