ScienceDirect - Technol Rep Tohoku Univ ... - Garryck Osborne

NICK COOK 59
had developed a revolutionary air weapon, based perhaps on some radical
form of propulsion technology, it was inconceivable that the CIOS or
BIOS intelligence teams would have documented the discovery for the
world to read about.
To go the extra mile, I realized I'd have to access the original
intelligence data on which the BIOS and CIOS assessment teams, most
of whom were technical types sat at desks in Brussels, Paris, London and
Washington, had based their analyses. Here again, I knew there would be
no smoking gun. Had intelligence units in the field come across anything
meaningful, these reports, too, would have been sanitized. Anything as
obvious as a full-blown air vehicle or a new form of propulsion system
would not have escaped the censor's attention.
But to identify evidence of a new form of aerospace technology,
particularly one as far-reaching as that described in the legend or by
Vesco, I wasn't searching for the obvious, because the obvious would
have been picked up by the censors.
As with any new piece of technology, developments came together as
a series of systems and subsystems. There would have been prime
contractors and subcontractors, some of them working in new scientific
areas—areas that would have been on the very edge of the technical
knowledge of the deskbound BIOS and CIOS assessors.
Between the chaos of the front line and the overstretched resources
of the intelligence units tasked with assessing German hardware and
documentation—which the victors had shipped out of Germany by the
ton-load—there might still, I figured, be some fresh evidence; something
useful that had been overlooked.
I started with the British, whose initial stab at organized technology
plunder was vested in the hands of a ragtag private army—composed,
bizarrely, of sailors and Royal Marine commandos. This outfit was the
brainchild of a certain Commander Ian Fleming, who 15 years later
would go on to create the Bond persona in the double-oh-seven novels.
Bond's character, it appears, drew heavily on the exploits of 30 Assault
Unit RN, which rode roughshod over the conventions of the day.
Following the battle for Cherbourg, in which 30 AU RN had been tasked
with capturing German naval headquarters, the marines liberally enjoyed
the spoils of war. Their behavior was described as that of "merry
courageous, amoral, loyal, lying toughs, hugely disinclined to take no for
an answer from foe orfraulein"
As a result of their "martial exuberance," as one assessor wrote, 30 AU
RN was reined in somewhat and renamed 30 Advanced Unit RN. It was