Dudley Clarke

'We had all heard so much about Dudley Clarke that we were most intrigued to see the 'great deceiver' in the flesh, and find out what he was like. He proved to be a small, neat, fair-haired man, with merry blue eyes and a quiet chuckle which used to make even his shoulders shake slightly. He was a 'Gunner', but had served very little of his time with the Royal Regiment, having been selected again and again for unorthodox assignments.

He had been among the first officers to land in Norway and carried £10,000 in notes [about £600,000 now - CB] in his pockets, which had been thrust upon him at the last moment. He had surveyed the route from Mombasa to Cairo as a possible means of reinforcing our forces in the Middle East. He had originated the Commandos and, after Dunkirk, been the first officer to land again with a raiding party on the coast of France. It was whispered that in Spain he had slipped up and been arrested while disguised as a woman. (Being short and having a rather plumb pink face he could easily have passed for one). In fact, he was a truly legendary figure and he got a great deal of fun out of intrigue of every kind. He even had the crowns on his shoulders, red Staff gorgets and medal ribbons fitted with press studs so that, by removing them, he would at will appear to be an inconspicuous subaltern; although the pilot's wings of the Royal Flying Corps on his tunic gave it away that he had served in the 1914/18 war.

By his kindness, humour and truly courteous way in which he deferred to our own, non-Regular Lt. Colonel, he won all our hearts, and we were tremendously impressed with his amazing grasp of all Deception problems. He and I soon became the best of friends and have long continued so, only last week (November 1965), he generously brought me back from Paris a china figure of Marshal Marmont, to add to my collection of Napoleonic soldiers.'

Source: DW's unpublished memoirs. Largely repeated in 'The Deception Planners', page 97.

Peter Fleming (elder brother of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels)

'Major Peter Fleming, another unusual personality, I had already met. Unlike many authors of travel books, who turn out to be pale, bespectacled little men, his bronzed, tight-skinned face always gave the impression that he had only just returned from an arduous journey across the Mongolian desert or up some little-known tributary of the Amazon. His lithe, sinewy figure, dark eyes and black hair reminded one of a jaguar, until his quiet smile rendered the simile inappropriate.

Physically, he was as fit as any troop-leader of Commandos and, in fact, he had been Chief instructor at the London District Unarmed Combat School before being sent out to initiate deception in the Far East. Yet when in London there was no trace in his appearance of the tough adventurer. He was always immaculate in the gold-peaked cap and freshly-pressed tunic of his regiment, the Grenadier Guards. There was only one thing I disliked about Peter. He smoked the foulest pipe I ever came within a yard of, and when he used to sit on the edge of my desk puffing at it, I heartily wished him back in the jungle. But we were most fortunate in having such a courageous, intelligent and imaginative man as our colleague for the war against Japan.'

Source: DW's unpublished memoirs. Largely repeated in 'The Deception Planners', pp 97-8.