Real life inspiration for James Bond's second kill?
Number24
NorwayPosts: 22,331MI6 Agent
In Casino royale Bond tells Vesper Lynd he got the 00-status after killing a Japanese in New York and a Norwegian double-agent in Stockholm. Ian Fleming knew more than most about covert ops during WWII. Is it possible this story was based on real events?
There is the case of Kai Holst. He was a regional commander in the Norwegian resistance before he had to escape to Sweden where he continued working for the resistance. Stockholm, like Zürich in Switzerland and Casablanca in Marocco, was full of spies working for all the major players. Kai Holst was very much involved in this. Was he "suicided" just after the war? At the time the Swedish inteligence agency C-byrån ("C-agency" , named after the first letter of the commanding officer's first name) and OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the US inteligence service during the war) were running an operation called "Claw" in Lillehammer, Norway. 35 German experts on signals inteligence were imprisoned in Lillehammer. These German inteligence officers had spent the war listening in on the soviets and now the Swedish and the Americans were planning to get them out so they could work for the West. At the same time Kai Holst was searching for German war criminals in POW camps in Norway in a joint operation between MI6 and Norwegian inteligence. One theory is that Holst was planning to go public about Operation Claw, so C-agency and OSS murdered him. People who later tried to find more about Kai holst's demise recived death-threats and Kai Holst's file in Säpo (Swedish police inteligence, their MI5) has mysteriously vanished. This looks a lot like what Fleming wrote about in CR, other than the fact that Kai Holst wasn't a double-agent.
The photo is restaging of Kai holst as he was found dead:
There is another case, and this time the victim really was a double agent. Instead of an embassy the Norwegian exile government in London had a Legation in Stockholm. On the 29th of July 1944 the Swede Claes Bertil Warholm was shot in the military office in the Norwegian Legation. The killers were Arthur Pevik and Odd Sørli, both Norwegian Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents. They had worked in nazi-occupied Norway, mostly with training guerillas. The victim Warholm probably worked as a secret agent for several of the sides in the war. For a period he worked in Trondheim in Norway for the resistance, but he was turned by the Gestapo. A short time after the resistance in the region around Trondheim was hit hard, with many members killed or arrested and tortured. An organisation called Sonderabteilung Lola "Special Unit Lola" , led by Oliver Rinnan (a man who could be a good model for a Bond villan) was behind it. Arthur Pevik's brother was arrested, horribly tortured and hanged in his cell. Family members of Odd Sørli were also arrested and tortured. Odd got away, but two members of Sonderabteilung Lola moved into the family home.
The two SOE-agents had lured Warholm to the Legation to get him on Norwegian territory, because a legation is like an embassy or consulate. It was probably not a sanctioned killing since Sørli later critizised Pevik for shooting. After killing Warholm they rolled him into a carpet and drove to the British Legation where the body was dumped. The British understood the Norwegians were behind the killing and asked them to sort out the mess. They sent Ida Lindebrække to make the body ready. She was the secretary at the SOE office at the Norwegian Legation. Her normal duties involved wining and dining agents returning agents from missions at the best restaurants in the city. When their R&R was over she issued them with suicide pils and other equipment before going to the next mission in occupied Norway. Sometimes she also handed the assassination orders from London. She was basically "Miss Moneypenny". After the war she married SOE-agent Max Manus (the movie "Man of War" is about him), and became known as "Tikken" Manus. Then someone drove the body outside the city and dumped it in a bog.
Both Sørlie and Pevik returned to Norway where they worked for the SOE for the rest of the war. Odd Sørli worked for the Oslo Gang, an outfit led by Gunnar "Number 24" Sønsteby and considered to be the best sabotage unit in Europe by the SOE. Rolf Larsen, Bond's target in "Forever and a day" was also described as a member of the group. The Oslo Gang were the personal bodyguard of crown prince Olav when he returned to Norway weeks after the war ended. The German soldiers were still armed, but Sørlie drowe the crown prince's car calmly in the welcoming parade. Odd Sørli led the group that shot Oliver Rinnan after he got the death penalty after the war. It wasn't Odd Sørli who asked for the job - he was leading the executioners on Rinnan's request.
SOE-agent Odd Sørli driving the crown prince's car during the freedom parade in 1945
[img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Kronprins_Olav_i_åpen_bil,_Mai_1945_(3610415183).jpg/220px-Kronprins_Olav_i_åpen_bil,_Mai_1945_(3610415183).jpg[/img]
SOE-agent Arthur Pevik, who shot Claes-Bertil Warholm
Ida Lindebrække/"Tikken" Manus
Oliver Rinnan (in the middle) while he was in prison after the war. The officer with his back to the camera is the SOE agent Tormod Morset. Morset's exact words to Rinnan when the photo was taken were: "Rinnan, you killed my brother". The entire Morset family had to escape from the Trondheim region over the mountain to Sweden after Rinnan's Sonderabteilung Lola exposed them as pathfinders for refugees across the border to Sweden. My father knew one of the younger brothers when they were both students. The younger brother was missing an arm after getting shot during the escape to Sweden.
The restaurant in Grand Hotel in Stockholm. This place was a favourite for diplomats, spies and SOE-agents during WWII.
There is the case of Kai Holst. He was a regional commander in the Norwegian resistance before he had to escape to Sweden where he continued working for the resistance. Stockholm, like Zürich in Switzerland and Casablanca in Marocco, was full of spies working for all the major players. Kai Holst was very much involved in this. Was he "suicided" just after the war? At the time the Swedish inteligence agency C-byrån ("C-agency" , named after the first letter of the commanding officer's first name) and OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the US inteligence service during the war) were running an operation called "Claw" in Lillehammer, Norway. 35 German experts on signals inteligence were imprisoned in Lillehammer. These German inteligence officers had spent the war listening in on the soviets and now the Swedish and the Americans were planning to get them out so they could work for the West. At the same time Kai Holst was searching for German war criminals in POW camps in Norway in a joint operation between MI6 and Norwegian inteligence. One theory is that Holst was planning to go public about Operation Claw, so C-agency and OSS murdered him. People who later tried to find more about Kai holst's demise recived death-threats and Kai Holst's file in Säpo (Swedish police inteligence, their MI5) has mysteriously vanished. This looks a lot like what Fleming wrote about in CR, other than the fact that Kai Holst wasn't a double-agent.
The photo is restaging of Kai holst as he was found dead:
There is another case, and this time the victim really was a double agent. Instead of an embassy the Norwegian exile government in London had a Legation in Stockholm. On the 29th of July 1944 the Swede Claes Bertil Warholm was shot in the military office in the Norwegian Legation. The killers were Arthur Pevik and Odd Sørli, both Norwegian Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents. They had worked in nazi-occupied Norway, mostly with training guerillas. The victim Warholm probably worked as a secret agent for several of the sides in the war. For a period he worked in Trondheim in Norway for the resistance, but he was turned by the Gestapo. A short time after the resistance in the region around Trondheim was hit hard, with many members killed or arrested and tortured. An organisation called Sonderabteilung Lola "Special Unit Lola" , led by Oliver Rinnan (a man who could be a good model for a Bond villan) was behind it. Arthur Pevik's brother was arrested, horribly tortured and hanged in his cell. Family members of Odd Sørli were also arrested and tortured. Odd got away, but two members of Sonderabteilung Lola moved into the family home.
The two SOE-agents had lured Warholm to the Legation to get him on Norwegian territory, because a legation is like an embassy or consulate. It was probably not a sanctioned killing since Sørli later critizised Pevik for shooting. After killing Warholm they rolled him into a carpet and drove to the British Legation where the body was dumped. The British understood the Norwegians were behind the killing and asked them to sort out the mess. They sent Ida Lindebrække to make the body ready. She was the secretary at the SOE office at the Norwegian Legation. Her normal duties involved wining and dining agents returning agents from missions at the best restaurants in the city. When their R&R was over she issued them with suicide pils and other equipment before going to the next mission in occupied Norway. Sometimes she also handed the assassination orders from London. She was basically "Miss Moneypenny". After the war she married SOE-agent Max Manus (the movie "Man of War" is about him), and became known as "Tikken" Manus. Then someone drove the body outside the city and dumped it in a bog.
Both Sørlie and Pevik returned to Norway where they worked for the SOE for the rest of the war. Odd Sørli worked for the Oslo Gang, an outfit led by Gunnar "Number 24" Sønsteby and considered to be the best sabotage unit in Europe by the SOE. Rolf Larsen, Bond's target in "Forever and a day" was also described as a member of the group. The Oslo Gang were the personal bodyguard of crown prince Olav when he returned to Norway weeks after the war ended. The German soldiers were still armed, but Sørlie drowe the crown prince's car calmly in the welcoming parade. Odd Sørli led the group that shot Oliver Rinnan after he got the death penalty after the war. It wasn't Odd Sørli who asked for the job - he was leading the executioners on Rinnan's request.
SOE-agent Odd Sørli driving the crown prince's car during the freedom parade in 1945
[img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Kronprins_Olav_i_åpen_bil,_Mai_1945_(3610415183).jpg/220px-Kronprins_Olav_i_åpen_bil,_Mai_1945_(3610415183).jpg[/img]
![https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Kronprins_Olav_i_åpen_bil,_Mai_1945_(3610415183).jpg/220px-Kronprins_Olav_i_åpen_bil,_Mai_1945_(3610415183).jpg[/img]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Kronprins_Olav_i_åpen_bil%2C_Mai_1945_%283610415183%29.jpg/220px-Kronprins_Olav_i_åpen_bil%2C_Mai_1945_%283610415183%29.jpg[/img]){kind=link}
SOE-agent Arthur Pevik, who shot Claes-Bertil Warholm
Ida Lindebrække/"Tikken" Manus
Oliver Rinnan (in the middle) while he was in prison after the war. The officer with his back to the camera is the SOE agent Tormod Morset. Morset's exact words to Rinnan when the photo was taken were: "Rinnan, you killed my brother". The entire Morset family had to escape from the Trondheim region over the mountain to Sweden after Rinnan's Sonderabteilung Lola exposed them as pathfinders for refugees across the border to Sweden. My father knew one of the younger brothers when they were both students. The younger brother was missing an arm after getting shot during the escape to Sweden.
The restaurant in Grand Hotel in Stockholm. This place was a favourite for diplomats, spies and SOE-agents during WWII.
Comments
It was lucky that Sweden remained "neutral" during the WWII, both Finns and Norwegians found this very helpful.
That C-Byrån/OSS operation Claw reminds me quite a bit of the Operation Stella Polaris run by Finnish Military Intelligence and FRA + C-Byrån from Sweden.
http://libertyladybook.com/2011/08/14/stella-polaris/
-Mr Arlington Beech
I was just wondering where you found out that information about Claes Bertil Warholm? I have an interest in the story of this man,
Thanks
Where are you from?
-Mr Arlington Beech
no murder, but Fleming and his pal William Stephenson did themselves break into the office of a Japanese cypher expert in the Rockefeller Centre. That's exactly the sort of real life experience Fleming would often romanticize into his James Bond plots
I didn't know this, so that's a very interesting piece of information. Thanks :007)
I am also interested in the assassination of Claes Bertil Warholm and would be pleased to discuss more about this fellow. There is quite a lot about him that doesn't add up.
No.24: I had the pleasure of meeting Gunnar Sønsteby at the Special Forces Club, London, although I was there for another reason. It was good to talk to him, but then I was only starting out researching Norwegian war history. How I wish he was around now to talk to!
What doesn't add up about Claes Bertil Warholm?
There are several aspects about Warholm`s history that have been difficult to reason.
1. He was courted both by SOE & MI6, though he was soon found out, imprisoned and then deported. However, there appears to have been some confusion over this between SOE and MI6. The impression from records was that he should have been retained in the UK.
2. It was known he was a double agent, but he was still in contact with SOE agents in Norway and Sweden. Why was this allowed to happen?
3. Why was Warholm assassinated?
4. Why was Warholm`s body taken to the British Minister`s residence before it was later disposed of?
Warholm`s wife followed him to Sweden when he was deported. Unfortunately, his wife passed away many years ago and his son, David, has also died. Tikken Manus has also passed, so any chances of finding out more about this assassination are very small, but I live in hope!
I'm pretty sure he was killed because of his role in betraying the resistance in the Trøndelag region in Norway. Both the SOE agents who were there when he got shot had friends and family afected by Warholm's betrayal, so I'm pretty sure it was personal.
Op Lark (SOE) had been penetrated. Some were chased out of Trondheim and surrounding area - Ivar Brekke being one of them. Pevik threatened at least one of them, possibly two, and they escaped to Sweden. I can find no documented evidence of Warholm of infiltrating into the Trondheim area, though he may well have done so. However, Pevik knew him very well, so his chances of being successful were slim at best. It's also been mooted that it was Warholm who denounced Pevik's brother, Johnny, but again there's no documented or circumstantial evidence.
You could be right, though. It may well have been personal, but for reasons not known.
Best regards,
B19
The two agents wanted to stop Warholm before he could do more damage, but they had no official sanction. The plan was to kidnap Warholm in the office in the Norwegian Legation and question him there. Then they woulddrug him and smugle him outside of the city, kill him and dump him. Things got out of hand in the office and Pevik shot Warholm.
This is very interesting. I didn't know Warholm had been recruited by the Swedes, but it makes sense. I'll see if I can get hold of Skjeseth's book. BTW Do you know if he has referenced his findings?
Many thanks.
Ok, many thanks, much appreciated.
I'm always interested in Warholm, so if you come across anything else, then I'd be grateful for the 'heads up'.
Mvh,
Bob
Thanks,
I'm from England, Claes was actually my great grandfather and I'm studying history at University so have been looking into his life and trying to find out a bit more about why he did what he did.
There is another Warholm, Karsten, who is more in the news nowadays. He won the 400 meters hurdles in the World Championships in London in 2017, among other things. It's an uncomon name in Norway, so you two might be related?
Ian claimed his father had died a war hero at Telemark. I found out many years later that the anti-Nazi sabotage mission there happened in 1943, not in 1944 when Bertil was actually killed.
In my research, I found the heavily redacted MI6 report denying Bertil a position because he was “not of sufficient character”, and was thus deported to Sweden.
I met Ian in Stockholm in 1978. He had two children with his second wife, a Swede. Ian abandoned all four of his children I know about (my son being one of them) physically and financially. All this was before personal computers, so he was able to get away with his misdeeds. He died in California in November, 2007.
There is so much about Bertil and Ian that doesn’t add up. Dealing with sociopaths is always difficult to understand, and those of us who have normal character are their unsuspecting targets.
Hello,
If Claes David had survived until 1980, he would have been my grandfather-in-Law. If you’re talking about Claes Bertil (the family called him Bertil), he would have been my father-in-law.
See my other comment on this thread for more information. He wasn’t a good person, and neither was his son, Ian.
In this case, the Warholms were Swedish. The family roots are in Västa-Götaland. There is a long line of paternal descent reaching back to the 12th Century. I have the genealogy, which was commissioned by Claes David Warholm (father of Claes Bertil) and done by a professional genealogist in Stockholm sometime in the 1950s.
Kind regards,
Bob
Would the Japanese consulate in New York have been closed after Pearl Harbour?
Because if it was, that would limit when Bond could have made his first kill.
Wikipedia says the Japanese consulate was closed after the attack on Pearl Harbour. That's all the information I have.
My question was kind of offtopic, but I asked it here because I trust No24 as my History expert. And the news yesterday that the Chinese consulate in Houston was forcibly closed reminded me.
My off-topic interest is just me overthinking the Bond timeline once again.
Later volumes tell us Bond was promoted to Double-O in 1950, that seems like a long wait after those two kills. And the obit in YOLT tells us Bond joined the Service in 1941 at the age of 17, I doubt the first job they'd give a teenage newbie would be an assassination at a foreign consulate.
As he went along, Fleming would revise both Bond's age and the year he joined the Secret Service, but he never mentioned those first two kills again. The timing of the first kill doesn't make any sense within the revised dates of the YOLT obit, but it didn't really make sense in CR in the first place.
Hey all,
I am from Norway, now 71 y.o. My father's brother, Andrew Gade Torp, was a NORIC1 or Company Linge (KPL) officer. From early 1950's until He was 70 in 1990, He was employed by the Norwegian Military Intelligence. He had 2 or 3 assignments into Norway during the war. The assumed 2nd was going to Trondheim in 1944 together with Arthur Pevik to try and assassin Henry Rinnan and his second Grande. Failing this, they returned together to Stockholm. So far, a documented fact. My uncle told my father of the killing in the Legation shortly after the war. He many years later also told me about it, in both cases he claimed to have had a part in the happenings. He said that Pevik, knowing Warholm from happenings in Trondheim earlier, recognised Warholm and observed him trying to recruit among the Norwegian fugitives of war in Stockholm. Via another person, they managed to relay to Warholm that he was wanted for an interview at the Norwegian Legation. Warholm obviously took the bait and turned up on his own at the Legation, where Pevik, Sørlie and Torp manhandled him to an office on the first floor that the KPL agents only, had at their disposal. Here they interrogated him, wanting to know on who's behalf he recruited in Stockholm, suspecting Warholm acted as an agent for Rinnan and Gestapo. When Warholm wasn't willing to reveal anything about his mission, they made a joint decision to shoot him. My uncle said this was exactly the same that would have happened to himself if he had been apprehended by the Germans. Not a big deal, he said. The challenge, however, was to get rid of the corpse. The Legation employee later known as Tikken Manus solved it by getting hold of a crate and a lorry, and they drove out of Stockholm and buried the corpse in a moor, where the remains probably still lies. My uncle never said anything about Pevik and/or Sørlie having possible personal reasons to shoot Warholm as a revenge. He also never mentioned anything about the corpse being disposed of via the British Legation rolled into a carpet and from there by lorry to the burial site in a moor.
Thank you for your very interesting post. I never hoped to get a discription from such a fine source. You must be proud to have an uncle who was an SOE agent in the famous Company Linge. Hopefully you will remain an AJB007 member.
Takk for posten.