Sir William Stephenson Case
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Sir William Stephenson
Did you know that James Bond is real? Well sort of. Sir William Stephenson was a man of many talents. He was one of Britains top fighter pilots who received many awards by the end of WWI. Stephenson was also an inventor, who created a wireless system for transmitting photographic images using radio. That and some investments helped him to become a millionaire.
What Stephenson was most well-known for was his involvement in espionage. He had many contacts with German pilots, who gave him information about Hitlers Nazi Government which he passed on to Winston Churchhill. Once WWII started, Church-hill assigned Stephenson to the British Security Coordination Service. Stephenson became Churchhills personal messenger to Franklin D. Roosevelt. This is where Stephenson developed his code-name “Intrepid.”
The author of the James Bond books Ian Fleming, has admitted that his stories are not entirely made-up. As it turns out Ian was a wartime colleague of Stephenson, and he used him in his story as Bond. Although the character was based off of Stephenson, Ian created all of the romance and women to spice it up.
Stephenson was born on January 23, 1897 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He grew up as a foster child, and dropped out of school to join the royal Canadian Engineers, but suffered of gas poisoning in France. After that he joined the Royal flying corps and was said to be out flying after only five hours of training. Later on Stephensons plane was shot down and he was captured and imprisoned, but shortly after he escaped. While he was imprisoned he saw that the Germans had invented some sort of can opener and as soon as he was home he patented it and made millions. This invention led to a few others, but he also made it big in construction and real-estate.
During WWI he won the rank of captain, the Military Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross. Stephenson was knighted into the order of the Knights Bachelor by King George the VI in 1945 for his amazing war services. He was also awarded the Medal for Merit in 1946 by President Harry Truman. At the time this award was the Highest U.S award you could receive. Although this was many years later he was also made a companion to the order of Canada in 1979. There were several books that were either written about or involved Stephenson.
These were books such as A Man Called Intrepid written 1976 by another man interestingly enough named William Stephenson, The Quiet Canadian written in 1962 by, H. Montgomery Hyde, and Thomas Troys Wild Bill and Intrepid. On January 31, 1989 at the age of 92 Stephenson passed away.