Patrick Dalzel-Job (1 June 1913 – 14 October 2003) was a British naval intelligence officer and commando in World War II. He was also an accomplished linguist, author, mariner, navigator, parachutist, diver, and skier.
Dalzel-Job is widely thought to be the model for James Bond, Ian Fleming's fictional spy, 007.
Early life
Born in London, Dalzel-Job was the only son of Captain Ernest Dalzel-Job, who was killed in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. After his father's death Dalzel-Job and his mother lived in various locations, including Switzerland, and he learnt to ski and sail. They returned to the UK in 1931 where he built his own schooner, the Mary Fortune, which he and his mother spent the next two years sailing around the British coast.
In 1937, they sailed to Norway and spent the next two years exploring the coast. During this time Dalzel-Job became fluent in Norwegian. He and his mother took on as crew a Norwegian schoolgirl named Bjørg Bangsund from the city of Tromsø.
WWII
On 8 December 1939, Dalzel-Job was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He served as navigating officer on a fleet tug operating from Scapa Flow between January and March 1940. From April to June, he served with the Anglo–Polish–French Expeditionary Force to Norway. He disobeyed a direct order to cease civilian evacuations from Narvik. His action saved some 5,000 Norwegians for which King Haakon of Norway awarded him the Ridderkors (Knight's Cross) of St. Olav in 1943. This award saved him from being court-martialled. His intent was to find Bjørg Bangsund, who had sailed with him six years earlier. In 1945 she was 19, he was 32. They wed in Oslo three weeks after he found her at Vestbane train station in Oslo. After their marriage on 26 June 1945 they returned to Edinburgh. "I prefer the quiet life now," Dalzel-Job went on. "When you have led such an exciting life you don't need to see a fictional account of it."
He released his memoirs, titled From Arctic Snow to Dust of Normandy () in 1991. It was later republished as Arctic Snow to Dust of Normandy.