Thassit !
Hello FluffyBunnyGB, fire mission…
Unusually for me, a question with no pictures (I’m away from home at the moment)
What connects Maj William Martin RM and Aston Martin, the car maker.
They are both British? :?
Is this a really obscure jobbie ?
Temp Capt, acting Maj William Martin RM was a fictional offr who was invented by Brit Int bods in WWII when they dropped the body of a man in RM uniform off the coast of Spain for Op Mincemeat.
A briefcase chained to his wrist contained false invasion plans which the Spanish authorities ‘accidentally’ opened then passed the gen on to the Germans.
Very James Bond.
When Broccolli wanted a car for ‘Goldfinger’ his minions originally approached Jaguar for an E-type, but William Lyons of Jag fcuked them off at the high port. Next stop Newport Pagnell & the DB5 drove into the shady world of spies…
Aston Martin has been the James Bond car ever since.
Capt WGS Aston RM commanded 833 Sqn RNAS in WWII while the Aston Martin company made aircraft parts.
All very obscure and cryptic, and therefore eminently suitable for a Radio Four programme, but I suspect the real answer is a lot simpler than my ramblings.
Is this a really obscure jobbie ?
Temp Capt, acting Maj William Martin RM was a fictional offr who was invented by Brit Int bods in WWII when they dropped the body of a man in RM uniform off the coast of Spain for Op Mincemeat.
A briefcase chained to his wrist contained false invasion plans which the Spanish authorities ‘accidentally’ opened then passed the gen on to the Germans.
Very James Bond.
When Broccolli wanted a car for ‘Goldfinger’ his minions originally approached Jaguar for an E-type, but William Lyons of Jag fcuked them off at the high port. Next stop Newport Pagnell & the DB5 drove into the shady world of spies…
Aston Martin has been the James Bond car ever since.
Capt WGS Aston RM commanded 833 Sqn RNAS in WWII while the Aston Martin company made aircraft parts.
All very obscure and cryptic, and therefore eminently suitable for a Radio Four programme, but I suspect the real answer is a lot simpler than my ramblings.[/quote]
Then in that case Maj William Martin RM body was dropped off by one of the planes using Aston Martin’s aircraft parts! :lol: Makes sense to me.
All the above may well be true, but not the answer for which I sought.
I’ll give it another day, then pop the answer up if it has still eluded you all.
Obscure in the extreme though …
Temp Capt, acting Maj William Martin RM was a fictional offr who was invented by Brit Int bods in WWII when they dropped the body of a man in RM uniform off the coast of Spain for Op Mincemeat.
A briefcase chained to his wrist contained false invasion plans which the Spanish authorities ‘accidentally’ opened then passed the gen on to the Germans.
Very James Bond.
Oh yes I read about it, it was not very succsessfull though.
Henk
Good idea, but “Maj Martin” was dropped into the sea, (after a short service,) by submarine.
Where did you read about it Henk ?
THE WORLD AT ARMS - The Readers Digest Illustrated History of WW2.
Why mate did you think I made it up?
Henk
No I didn’t think you made it up at all boet, I just wondered who had written that it wasn’t very successful.
The op saved thousands of Allied lives so I’d have called that a success - of course it depends on which side the writer was on ! 
I shall deploy the answer, otherwise we may be here a while …
I was fairly sure this would be a Googleproof question 
Maj William Martin (real identity kept a secret to protect the privacy of his family etc) was dropped into the sea off the coast of Spain, apparently carrying invasion plans for Sardinia (?) to divert German defences when the real attack would be against Greece (again ?).
The pre-eminent Aston Martin racing driver either side of WW2 was StJohn “Jock” Horsfall, who won the Spa 24 Hrs in 1946 but was sadly killed in 1949 in a racing accident.
There is an annual memorial race for pre-War Aston Martins, the “StJohn Horsfall”, usually held at Silverstone.
During WW2, Jock Horsfall worked in some rather secretive government departments, including working on Op MINCEMEAT.
At some point, Maj Martin’s body was ferried in the back of a green van across Britain, driven by Jock Horsfall at some speed.
When my final journey comes, I’m hoping that I will have Michael Schumacher driving the hearse
I shall pose an easy question to give someone else a crack now:
How many CENTURION tanks had been shipped to Europe by the end of the War?
Six were rushed to Germany in May 1945, but hostilities had ceased by the time they arrived.
Hey, it rhymes - almost.
My sources say 5 or 6, so that’s a “correct” for George.
Your turn sir …
This should be easy. The nickname for the British General known for his development of specialized armoured vehicles, particularly for the Normandy invasion.
Hobart’s funnies. A.K.A. “the Funnies” named after Percy Hobart. Is that right, George?
hmmmmm? Is it Hobo Hobart?
The USS Nevada, was used after WWII as a target ship for the bikini atomic experiments, it survived and decommisioned August 29. It was sunk by what near Hawaii July 31, 1948?