Peter Fleming

Peter Fleming , member of OBE, born in London on May 31st, 1907 and deceased on August 9th, 1971 is a British adventurer, author of accounts of voyages.

Biography

The lieutenant-colonel Robert Peter Fleming, Scot, adventurer, hunter and writer, are the grandson of the banker Robert Fleming and the brother of the novelist Ian Fleming who took as a starting point his life to create his character of James Bond. Studies with Eton College then with the Christ Church College of the university of Oxford. During its schooling with Eton, he was writer of the Eton College Chronicle , and the Peter Fleming Owl (English equivalent of “owl”, the name under which he will write later for The Spectator) is always preceded each year as a better contributor of the chronicle. In 1935, he married the actress Celia Johnson (1908-1982) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celia_Johnson), more known for its role in the film Brief Encounter . International reporter for Times in the Thirties, it follows in 1933, in Moscow, the lawsuit of the English spies of the firm of Vickers weapons. It leaves then on the traces colonel Fawcett in the Brazilian jungle. In February 1935 it starts with Ella Maillart (1903-1997) a seven months crossing of China from Beijing to the Cashmere through the deserts of Central Asia - it is already agent of the MI6. On this voyage, Fleming publishes Courrier of Tartarie (republished at Phébus Poche in 2001) in 1936 and Ella Maillart Oasis prohibited en1937. Lieutenant of reserve of the Pomegranate Guards since 1933, it integrates in 1938 the military intelligence service (the Military Intelligence Research , SEMI R). Officer of the auxiliary Units, like the actor Anthony Quayle, it is charged into 1940 to create the first center of drive of units of guerilla, in a farm of Kent, in Coleshill. He takes part in the forwarding of Norway within one of the ten companies independent of the SEMI R, the commandos (3 000 men) specialized in the demolition and the information; city the 12/20/40. It is useful in Greece in 1941 then in 1942 in Burma, with Chindits of the Wingate general. It finishes the war, lieutenant-colonel temporarily, with the head of the service of Intoxication ( Military disappointment operations ) of the general headquarter of the command of the Southeast Asia ( SEAC ) of Mountbatten. It is named Officier of the British Empire on a purely military basis on June 14th, 1945 and receives on May 14th, 1948 the rivet washer about the Cloud and the Standard of nationalist China. It is used in the Territorial Army until May 1965 (lieutenant-colonel on May 23rd, 1951) City in MI6 as S. Dorril.

After the war, Peter Fleming withdrew himself in the village of Nettlebed, Oxfordshire. He dies accidentally on August 18th, 1971 during a shooting party - its passion - in Scotland. He is buried in the cemetery of Nettlebed. On his tomb, one can read:

He travelled widely in far places;

Wrote, and was widely read.

Soldiered, saw nap off danger' S faces,

Cam home to Nettlebed. The squire dregs young stag, his journeys ended - Dust, and have name one has stone -

Content, amid the Lands He tended,

To keep this rendevous alone.

The fame of Peter Fleming is now almost occulted by that of sound younger brother, Ian Fleming, author of the books of James Bond. The Fleming brothers were two of four wire of lawyer and member of the Parliament Valentine Fleming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine_Fleming) killed by a German bombardment in Picardy in 1917, former member duParlement ( MP ) for Henley since 1910.

Cité in " MI6 " of Stephen Dorril, " Irregular regular " and " Albanian Assignment " of colonel David Smiley.

Random links: