Wilfred Dunderdale

Commander Wilfred Albert "Biffy" Dunderdale MBE (24 December 1899 – 13 November 1990[1]) was a British spy and intelligence officer. It has been suggested that Dunderdale was used by Ian Fleming as a basis for the character of James Bond.[2]

Life

Wilfred Dunderdale was born in Odessa, son of Richard Albert Dunderdale, a shipping magnate.

Dunderdale served in the Royal Navy during the First World War, despite his thick accent.[3]

He worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) between 1921 and 1959. His work involved liaison with French intelligence (1926–40) and Polish intelligence (1940–45).

Bill "Biffy" Dunderdale, was station head of MI6 in Paris, wore cufflinks and handmade suits and was chauffeured around Paris in a Rolls-Royce. After his retirement from SIS in 1959 he was appointed British Consul-General in Chicago.[3]

Later moving to New York, he died there in November 1990.[3] According to notes compiled by Stephen Dorril for his 1989 book, A Who's Who of the British State, Dunderdale was a member of Boodle's.[4]

Notes
  1. John Bruce Lockhart, "Dunderdale, Wilfred Albert (1899-1990)", rev., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
  2. "The James Bond Story". ABC TV Documentaries. ABC TV. 13 December 2000.
  3. West, Nigel (2005). Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence. Scarecrow Press. p. 162.
  4. Stephen Dorril (1989). A Who's Who of the British State. p. 29.

Further reading
  • Matthew M. Aid, "'Stella Polaris' and the Secret Code Battle in Postwar Europe", Intelligence and National Security 17(3), Autumn 2002, pp 17–86.
  • Gustave Bertrand, Enigma ou la plus grande énigme de la guerre 1939–1945 (Enigma: the Greatest Enigma of the War of 1939–1945), Paris, Librairie Plon, 1973.
  • Brian Cathcart, "The name's Dunderdale, Biffy Dunderdale", The Independent (London), June 23, 1996
  • Kozaczuk, Władysław, Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two, edited and translated by Christopher Kasparek, Frederick, MD, University Publications of America, 1984, ISBN 0-89093-547-5.
  • Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Enigma: The Battle for the Code, 2000, ISBN 0-7538-1130-8.
  • Jacek Tebinka, "Account of the former Chief of Polish intelligence on cracking the Enigma code of 31 V 1974", p. 214 (footnote 34) in Jan Stanislaw Ciechanowski, ed. Marian Rejewski 1905–1980, Living with the Enigma secret, 1st ed, Bydgoszcz City Council, 2005, ISBN 83-7208-117-4
  • Winterbotham, F.W., The Ultra Secret, New York, Dell, 1975.


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