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From Ian Fleming's "You only Live Twice" Chapter 21.
The Times
Commander James Bond,
C.M.G., R.N.V.R.
M. writes:--
As your readers will have learned from earlier issues, a senior
officer of the Ministry of Defence, Commander James Bond, C.M.G.,
R.N.V.R., is missing, believed killed, while on an official mission to
Japan. It grieves me to have to report that hopes of his survival must
now be abandoned. It therefore falls to my lot, as the Head of the
Department he served so well, to give some account of this officer and
of his outstanding services to his country.
James Bond was born of a Scottish father, Andrew Bond of Glencoe, and
a Swiss mother, Monique Delacroix, from the Canton de Vaud. His father
being a foreign representative of the Vickers armaments firm, his early
education, from which he inherited a first-class command of French and
German, was entirely abroad. When he was eleven years of age, both his
parents were killed in a climbing accident in the Aiguilles Rouges above
Chamonix, and the youth came under the guardianship of an aunt, since
deceased, Miss Charmian Bond, and went to live with her at the
quaintly-named hamlet of Pett Bottom near Canterbury in Kent. There, in
a small cottage hard by the attractive Duck Inn, his aunt, who must have
been a most erudite and accomplished lady, completed his education for
an English public school, and, at the age of twelve or thereabouts, he
passed satisfactorily into Eton, for which College he had been entered
at his birth by his father. It must be admitted that his career at Eton
was brief and undistinguished and, after only two halves, as a result,
it pains me to record, of some alleged trouble with one of the boys'
maids, his aunt was requested to remove him. She managed to obtain his
transfer to Fettes, his father's old school. Here the atmosphere was
somewhat Calvinistic, and both academic and athletic standards were
rigorous. Nevertheless, though inclined to be solitary by nature, he
established some firm friendships among the traditionally famous
athletic circles at the school. By the time he left, at the early age of
seventeen, he had twice fought for the school as a light-weight and had,
in addition, founded the first serious judo class at a British public
school. By now it was 1941 and, by claiming an age of nineteen and with
the help of an old Vickers colleague of his father, he entered a branch
of what was subsequently to become the Ministry of Defence. To serve the
confidential nature of his duties, he was accorded the rank of
lieutenant in the Special Branch of the R.N.V.R., and it is a measure of
the satisfaction his services gave to his superiors that he ended the
war with the rank of Commander. It was about this time that the writer
became associated with certain aspects of the Ministry's work, and it
was with much gratification that I accepted Commander Bond's post-war
application to continue working for the Ministry in which, at the time
of his lamented disappearance, he had risen to the rank of Principal
Officer in the Civil Service.
The nature of Commander Bond's duties with the Ministry, which were,
incidentally, recognized by the appointment of C.M.G. in 1954, must
remain confidential, nay secret, but his colleagues at the Ministry will
allow that he performed them with outstanding bravery and distinction,
although occasionally, through an impetuous strain in his nature, with a
streak of the foolhardy that brought him in conflict with higher
authority. But he possessed what almost amounted to "The Nelson Touch"
in moments of the highest emergency, and he somehow contrived to escape
more or less unscathed from the many adventurous paths down which his
duties led him. The inevitable publicity, particularly in the foreign
press, accorded some of these adventures, made him, much against his
will, something of a public figure, with the inevitable result that a
series of popular books came to be written around him by a personal
friend and former colleague of James Bond. If the quality of these
books, or their degree of veracity, had been any higher, the author
would certainly have been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. It
is a measure of the disdain in which these fictions are held at the
Ministry, that action has not yet -- I emphasize the qualification --
been taken against the author and publisher of these high-flown and
romanticized caricatures of episodes in the career of a outstanding
public servant.
It only remains to conclude this brief in memoriam by assuring his
friends that Commander Bond's last mission was one of supreme importance
to the State. Although it now appears that, alas, he will not return
from it, I have the authority of the highest quarters in the land to
confirm that the mission proved to be one hundred per cent successful.
It is no exaggeration to pronounce unequivocally that, through the
recent valorous efforts of this one man, the Safety of the Realm has
received mighty reassurance.
James Bond was briefly married in 1962, to Teresa, only daughter of
Marc-Ange Draco, of Marseilles. The marriage ended in tragic
circumstances that were reported in the press at the time. There was no
issue of the marriage and James Bond leaves, so far as I am aware, no
relative living.
M.G. writes:
I was happy and proud to serve Commander Bond in a close capacity
during the past three years at the Ministry of Defence. If our fears for
him are justified, may I suggest these simple words for his epitaph?
Many of the junior staff here feel they represent his philosophy:
"I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my
time."
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