Aston Martin DB5 Goldfinger Continuation deploying smoke screen. Photo © Aston Martin. Used by permission.

Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, was a former British Naval Intelligence officer who drew inspiration from his own experiences and the people he met during World War II. Q is a character in the James Bond films who is the head of Q Branch, the fictional research and development division of the British Secret Service, who supplies Bond with various gadgets and weapons to help him in his missions. Q stands for Quartermaster. The use of a single letter to identify an important person in MI6 was actually started by Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming, who served as first Chief of the Secret Intelligence Serves (SIS) and signed documents with a green “C”.

The character Q never appears in the novels by Ian Fleming. However, Q became a prominent figure in the novelizations by Christopher Wood and the later novels by John Gardner and Raymond Benson. They followed the example of EON Productions, the UK based production company that makes the James Bond films, and merged Q with Major Boothroyd, the expert on weapons from Dr. No. But who was the real Q behind the fictional invention?

According to some sources, Fleming based Q on a man named Geoffrey Boothroyd, a British firearms expert and author who had a significant influence on the James Bond novels and films. Born in 1925 in Blackpool, he worked for Imperial Chemical Industries in the manufacture of ammunition. He wrote over a dozen books about firearms, ranging from historical guides to technical manuals. He also corresponded with Fleming and advised him on the choice and use of weapons for the fictional spy. He suggested that Bond should switch from a .25 caliber Beretta to a 7.65mm Walther PPK, which Fleming adopted in the novel Dr. No (1958). He also lent his own revolver to illustrator Richard Chopping for the cover of From Russia, with Love (1957). He was honored by Fleming with a character named Major Boothroyd, who became the basis for Q, the head of the Q Branch that supplies Bond with gadgets. Boothroyd appeared in a BBC documentary titled The Guns of James Bond (1964), introduced by Sean Connery, where he demonstrated some of the weapons used by Bond. He died in 2001 at the age of 76.

However, Boothroyd was not the only possible influence for Q. Another candidate is Charles Fraser-Smith, a colleague of Fleming’s in Naval Intelligence. Born in 1904 in Croxley Green in Hertfordshire, Charles Fraser-Smith was a remarkable man who played a vital role in Britain’s secret war during World War II. Fraser-Smith invented and supplied many ingenious devices for the operatives of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, and Military Intelligence Section 9 (MI9). He worked as a temporary civil servant in the Ministry of Supply, but his true mission was to create and procure items that could help prisoners of war escape and spies gather intelligence behind enemy lines. He used his skills of bricolage, improvisation and persuasion to obtain materials and equipment from hundreds of firms, often without revealing their purpose or destination. Some of his inventions included:

• A shaving brush with a hidden cavity for storing a map and a saw
• A cigarette lighter with a miniature camera inside
• A steel shoelace that could be used as a garrotte or a saw
• A pipe with an asbestos lining for carrying secret documents
• A tin trunk for preserving a corpse in dry ice (used in the famous deception plot “The Man Who Never Was”)
• Luminous balls painted with radium paint for marking landing strips for aircraft pick-up operations

Fraser-Smith called his inventions “Q devices”, after the Q ships, warships disguised as freighters, which were deployed in the First World War. He procured items from more than 300 firms in and around London, many of whom had no idea what they were making or why. He kept his work so secret that even his secretary and his boss did not know what he was doing. He was described as “scholastically useless except for woodwork and science and making things.”

Fraser-Smith kept a low profile and never received any official recognition or reward for his work. He was only known by his code name “CT6” and his telephone number. He wrote several books about his experiences, but they were not widely read or believed until after his death in 1992. He was a humble and devout Christian who saw his work as a service to God and his country. He was one of the unsung heroes of the war who made a significant contribution to the Allied victory.

Whether it was Boothroyd, Fraser-Smith, or a combination of both, Q is undoubtedly one of the most memorable and beloved characters in the Bond franchise. His role as Bond’s mentor, ally, and sometimes critic adds a touch of humor and realism to the otherwise fantastical adventures of 007. Q is also a testament to Fleming’s ability to draw from real life and transform it into fiction.

Sources

The Official James Bond Website
007.com

Aston Martin
AstonMartin.com

Walther Arms
WaltherArms.com