Bond's Service In The British Navy

Blood_Stone

1.) What did he do?

2.) How long was he in it before joining MI6?

Skyfall got me wondering about Bond's past.

Silhouette Man

The James Bond of the books by Ian Fleming was in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) - otherwise known as British Naval Intelligence, where Bond, just like his creator Fleming, was a Commander. He was involved in World War II. You should read Ian Fleming's Thunderball (1961) and You Only Live Twice (1964) to find out more about his naval career. In YOLT there is The Times obituary of James Bond which reveals much of what we know of Bond's background, including his Naval background. Bond went on to kill twice in order to become a double-O agent - we are told the story behind this in Casino Royale (1953). You should have a read of these key James Bond texts. Theren lie the answers to all of the questions you have posed in this thread.

The films YOLT, TSWLM and TND show Bond in Naval uniform - in TSWLM film it's made clear he was not a "chocolate sailor" but that he had in fact served in the Royal Navy as a Commander on HMS Ark Royal. This differes from the book Bond of course. The end pages of the paperback UK version of Sebastian Faulks' Devil May Care (2008) has updated detail on what I call James Bond 2.0 - the "rebooted" Bond of the Daniel Craig era - Casino Royale (2006). There was (and maybe still is, I've not checked) a site where a new biography of James Bond 2.0 is given - Bond is given much more of a Special Forces background than was really ever mentioned in the Fleming books - it's also apparent that Eon wanted Bond to be much more of the "working class hero"-type tough, a bit more like the original Bond Sean Connery) than the rakish Eton drop-out and Fettes public school boy as played most especially by Roger Moore in his seven James Bond films between 1973 and 1985.

Bond was seconded into MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service from either the Navy or the armed forces - Fleming is on record as having said in numerous interviews that Bond was based on commandos and secret agents he met during the war or in his gentleman's club.

Hope something in there helps. I do intend to write an article on this fascinating subject matter at some point under the title of 'James Bond 2.0" as I think it does seem rather appropriate! Have a look on my The Bondologist Blog for some of the other answers to your questions in this thread - especially this particular article here:

http://thebondologistblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/james-bond-in-contemporary-world-war-ii.html

Happy reading and let me know what you think via this thread or on the blog article comment box itself.

All the best,

SILHOUETTE MAN.

Charmed & Dangerous

Well written and researched, Silhouette Man 8-)

Barbel

Charmed & Dangerous wrote:

Well written and researched, Silhouette Man 8-)

+1

Silhouette Man

Thank you both. I guess this sort of stuff is rather fresh in my mind - it might feature as an article on The Bondologist Blog at some point in the future!

Firemass

in the film TSWLM it mentions Bond served on the Ark Royal? Really? The aircraft carrier that helped track and sink the Bismarck!

sniperUK

Firemass wrote:

in the film TSWLM it mentions Bond served on the Ark Royal? Really? The aircraft carrier that helped track and sink the Bismarck!

No the one that served the Royal Navy from the 50s until 1978 the WW2 one was torpedoed and sunk in 1941.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_%28R09%29

There have actually been five ships named Ark Royal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal