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The part two link is broken, they put 11 instead of 12 in the URL, working link: https://blog.oup.com/2011/11/fleming-2/
Doesn't he usually portrait CIA agents as incompetent or heavy handed but also well-founded?
Do you mean well funded?
As for incompetent, there might have been plenty of that to go around. Kim Philby is a pretty big embarrassment for the UK and that began in WWII. The US has had its own. Russia seems to always have been pretty good at HUMINT.
I find it strange they were able to fly KLM (the flag carrier airline of Nazi-occupied Netherlands), presumably over Nazi-occupied France.
From what I've gathered, KLM was mostly dormant during World War II, but their web site has the following.
> All that remained of KLM during World War II was a single European service (between Bristol and Lisbon) and the so-called West-Indian Operation.
Source: https://blog.klm.com/klm-loves-dutch-royals/
Also, Portugal was neutral during World War II up until about 1944, which probably explains why there was a route to Lisbon.
There's further information here, as follows.
> During World War II, however, KLM lay largely dormant except in the West Indies, where its service, begun in 1941, grew rapidly, expanding to nine Caribbean and Latin American countries by 1945.
Some KLM aircraft were flown to Britain at the beginning of the war. They operated a Bristol-Lisbon service under BOAC registration. I presume it was one of those fights that's being referenced.
"The two men flew KLM to Lisbon and then took the Pan Am Boeing 314 seaplane via the Azores to the British colony of Bermuda"
Just unbelievably adventurous sounding to modern ears. If only travel could be that cool again.
If only travel could be that cool again.
Certain aspects of adventure might not be baked in to travel these days, but it's still possible to get it in there:
You can easily chain flights together, spending a day in pretty much any city not in the complete opposite direction of your destination. Maybe drape yourself across a few seats to sleep in the airport instead of a hotel for a bigger adventurous feel. I had to do it once when the plane for my flight broke down and I missed a late connecting flight. On another occasion I decided not to keep a hotel room for the last night of a conference, leave luggage at the hotel, and stay up all night in the city:
It was Las Vegas, and while I'm not much of a gambler the hotels have some amazing things to see, outdoor water shows, all kinds of things. Meanwhile the casinos give free drinks so I'd stop in, tip the waitress and get a red bull, occasionally with a vodka. Had a fun time losing $40 in a small poker tournament. Went people watching to see folks excitedly winning & losing money, other that appeared to be desperately & sadly feeding machines and cringe slightly when they didn't hit anything. Saw the plastered-on smiles of the city's natives working hospitality. Around 6:00am I walked into a restaurant for a huge steak & eggs breakfast, then went back to my hotel's lobby to pickup my bags and sleep in one of their chairs for an hour or two before I went to catch my flight. I got a much better feel for the true flavor of the city. Or at least a better informed sense of it.
I was much younger then-- not the sort of travel adventure I'd seek out these days, but you can make your own.
It was a bit exhausting, I understand, five days and five nights from Lisbon to New York.
Well it would have to be, but then again the fun of staying in 5 different increasingly exotic places on the way to your destination just sounds like loads of fun to me, as long as I had a fresh linen suit of course.
I mean, have a look at this trip from London to Sydney pre-war. Just fantastic.
"Eastbound passengers from London would first fly from Croydon to Paris, take an overnight train to Brindisi, and fly onward with stops at Athens, Alexandria (overnight), Gaza, Baghdad (overnight), Basra, Kuwait, Bahrain, Sharjah (overnight), Gwadar, Karachi, Jodhpur (overnight), Delhi, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Calcutta (overnight), Akyab, Rangoon, Bangkok (overnight), Alor Star, Singapore (overnight), Batavia, Sourabaya, Rambang (overnight), Koepang, Darwin (overnight), Longreach (overnight), and Charleville.[8] London-Karachi was operated by Imperial Airways, Karachi-Singapore jointly by Imperial and Indian Trans-Continental Airways, and Singapore-Brisbane by Qantas.[9]"