Merlin Minshall
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Merlin Minshall is often claimed to have been one of the inspirations behind James Bond, the fictional spy created by Ian Fleming. Minshall worked for Fleming, as a member of the Special Branch of British Naval Intelligence.
He wrote about his extraordinary life in a book entitled Guilt-Edged (published 1977). Its content is summed up by Len Deighton in the foreword:
"His mother was a spy in World War I. Ian Fleming was his boss throughout the Second World War. Unwittingly sucked into the world of Nazi espionage during an innocent sailing trip, he was seduced by a lovely but lethal German agent and met Field Marshall Göring face to face. He was the first man to cross the Sahara on a motorcycle and while travelling through the Congo, he accidentally discovered a secret German army. But Romania set the scene for the height of espionage activity - when he single handedly pirated a ship from under Nazi eyes and blew up a vital link in German tanker communications. The man is Merlin Minshall and this is his unique story."
Minshall was also well known as an amateur racing driver, who specialised in the kind of road races that are generally illegal today. His greatest triumph came in 1937, when he was presented with a trophy by Benito Mussolini for winning the 1937 Italian Foreign Challenge Trophy - a three day, 4,000 mile road race between Rome and Sicily. It involved over 400 cars, and led to the death of four drivers.
The encounter with the beautiful German agent came while sailing down the River Danube. She hitched a lift on his yacht - but it was no coincidence. She had been sent to discover whether he was charting the river and investigating oil storage depots for British intelligence. Having seduced him, she attempted to poison him, but Minshall survived, and the knowledge he had gained did indeed prove useful to the British during the war.
