FLEMING, Ian (1908-1964) – GODFREY, Admiral John Henry (1888-1970). The Naval Memoirs. [Comprising:] Vol. II, Dardanelles Commentary and the Aegean Diary; Egypt and East India; Mediterranean and Black Sea, 1915-1919; Vol. III, The Years Between, 1920- 1936; Vol. IV, Parts I & II, 1936-1938, Mediterranean Battle Cruiser; Vol. V, Part I, Naval Intelligence Division, 1939-1942; Vol. V, Part II, Naval Intelligence Division, 1947-1950; Volume VI, India, 1943-1946; Vol. VII, Parts I & II, A Naval Miscellany, 1903-1946. Hailsham: [for the author] Typed, Duplicated and Bound at Every bodies [sic] Secretarial Service, by Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Hilton, 1964-1966.

First and only edition of the memoirs of the head of a British intelligence organisation – an extraordinary survival from the primary inspiration for Ian Fleming’s ‘M’, with his candid opinions on T.E. Lawrence, the machinations of the French, events of the Second World War, his relationship with Churchill, and also covering India in the lead up to its independence.

Godfrey entered the Royal Navy as a cadet in in 1903, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1909. He served on the China Station (1910-1913), transferring to the Home Fleet in 1913. In HMS Euralyus, Godfrey took part in the entire Gallipoli campaign and provided vital naval supportduring the Arab Revolt. From this time, Godfrey notes of T.E. Lawrence: ‘A great deal of rubbish has been written about Lawrence... ninety per cent of his was practical, logical, hard-working and amazingly knowledgeable about Middle East archaeology, topography and Arabic roots’.

In the inter-war years, Godfrey was in the Royal Navy's strategic planning section before being appointed Director of Naval Intelligence Division (NID) in February 1939, when he was promoted to rear admiral. Godfrey's personal assistant at NID, Ian Fleming, was headhunted by two close friends in the City, and they formed a close working relationship. Under Godfrey’s command, NID’s manpower expanded tenfold by the recruitment of many talented civilians, and Godfrey instituted a system of information analysis and distribution to more effectively handle intelligence.

However, Godfrey could be abrasive, and historic differences – derived from the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign – led to clashes with Winston Churchill, who is described in Godfrey’s Memoirs as ‘this historic and powerful personality’. Their differences over the intelligence and operations during the Second World War, is explored in the present work with a 30-page, volume by volume commentary on Churchill's published account, together with a postscript on the nature of history writing with respect to Churchill's efforts and Godfrey’s own.

By mid-1942, these clashes led to Godfrey being moved sideways to command the Royal Indian Navy. He was the only officer of his rank who received no official recognition for his incalculable services to the allied cause during the war, a significant slight. The NID portion of the Memoirs occupies the entirety of volume V, some 400 pages, together with part of the reminiscences that make up the Miscellany.

Exceptionally rare, the present set lacks just volume I 1902-1915, volume VIII Afterthoughts, and the general index, but we can trace only two complete sets, the original typescripts themselves at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and a set at University of California, Irvine. The set in the Bodleian lacks the index; the Imperial War Museum has 10 volumes only (presumably lacking VIII and the Index); the British Library has vols I, III, and IV only, Leeds only III and VII, part I, and Florida State just V, part I. We have not been able to find any part set at auction (RBH/ABPC). Not in Cohen, Gilbert, or O'Brien.
Comprising volumes II-VII (without vols I, VIII and Index) bound in 9 volumes, quarto (250 x 194 mm). Portrait frontispiece and facsimile document to vol. V, part II; double-sided hole-punched Xeroxed typescript (occasional faint scattered spotting). Original blue cloth-backed pale blue printed stiff-card boards (extremities lightly rubbed and soiled, the cloth expertly repaired on a few vols, otherwise a very good set). Provenance: authorial inscription on front free endpaper of vol. II, and a further six parts have the author's compliments slips – Capt. Casper Swinley (1898-1983, head of NID (1) – the geographical section responsible Germany and Scandinavia; 3 vols have labels on front covers with typed page references, corresponding to marginal markings, all of which relate to Swinley; this set probably loaned by Swinley to:) – Vice-Admiral Harold Tom Baillie Grohman (1888-1978; marginalia and slip of paper with pencilled comments in his hand, identified by another hand, probably Swinley’s).