Patrick Dalzel-Job

On Wednesday night at 21:00 (BST) on Channel 5 (Britain) is a programme on James Bond. One of the characters that is rumoured to have been the inspiration behind James Bond is Patrick Dalzel-Job, a unique man who had spent some of his pre-war life sailing and mapping the Norwegian coast line as far as the Russian border. The Norwegian girl who accompanied him as crew later became his wife.

During the war he was called up to service with the Royal Navy and ended up in Narvik. Single-handed he saved the Norwegian towns people of Narvik from German bombing, disobeying Admiralty orders in the process. He was due to be Court Martialled, but was saved from this by King Haakon who in turn presented him with the Knight's Cross of St Olav.

Later in the war he served with '30 AU' commando unit.

Another character who served in Norway and was reputed to have inspired Ian Fleming's Bond was Colonel Andrew Croft. This man served with Gubbins' Independent Companies in Norway. Croft was holder of the 'Artic Medal'.

If you are unable to watch the programme then I fully recommend the following book if you wish to know more about PDJ; 'From Artic Snow to the Dust of Normandy' by Patrick Dalzel-Job (1992) ISBN: 0-9519788-0-2. It is readily available from Abebooks.

Mvh

Bob Pearson

Interesting!
Here is an Norwegian article on the subject: http://www.nullnullsju.net/artikler/norge.php

I read his book once, most interesting!

B.