Initially he supplied clothing and related props to for SOE agents, but this expanded to include ingenious devices such as hairbrushes with hidden compartments containing maps, cigarette lighters containing miniature cameras, and steel shoelaces that doubled as garrottes. CHARLES FRASER-SMITH: The church was at the center of our lives and one evening I was asked to give a talk to the congregation about my work in Morocco. I think people wanted some distraction from all they were hearing on the wireless. I gave my usual talk, explaining some of the unusual techniques I had devised for improving agricultural yield and, at the end, two gentlemen approached me. NARRATOR: Fraser-Smith’s gadgets don’t just assist you after you have made a break for freedom. They can also help set you free in the first place. Captured British soldiers are expected to form secret groups to plan escapes called ‘escape committees’. The idea is to make breakouts an organized, disciplined process. And there was a way to supply the escape committees. Because of the wartime secrecy there was no written production process to work from. At the end of the war, any complete pencils still at the factory were sent off to the British Government, along with all written instructions and remaining components. Most, if not all of these, may have been destroyed.

There were four different maps used which meant that four differently numbered pencils were made so they could be correctly identified by those in the know. Pencil No 101 contained a general map of Germany, while pencils numbered 102, 103 and 104 contained maps showing more detailed escape routes to the west or south of Germany, such as into Switzerland. Three examples of these maps are shown above (Photograph No 3). History.com added: “The “drowned” man was actually a Welsh tramp whose body was obtained in a London morgue by British intelligence officers Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu, the brains behind Operation Mincemeat.NARRATOR: They did work together on one operation though, a ruse worthy of Bond at his most daring, Charles Fraser-Smith supplied British intelligence and soldiers with a number of innovative gadgets during WWII. When Ian Fleming began writing his James Bond novels, he based the detective’s gadget master, “Q,” on Fraser-Smith. Charles kept samples of many of his gadgets which were put on show in many exhibitions. He died in 1992 at his home on the edge of Exmoor.

CHARLES FRASER-SMITH: Ian Fleming certainly had charm and an ability to get things done. At that time, he was personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence. Charles Fraser-Smith was the son of a solicitor who owned a wholesale grocery business; he was orphaned at age seven. He was then brought up by a Christian missionary family in Croxley Green in Hertfordshire. [3] He went to school at Brighton College, where he was described as "scholastically useless except for woodwork and science and making things." [4] Charles and his brother Alfred were for a short time pupils at The Court House, a private school in North Finchley.The pencils reveal their secret compartment and internal items – which were kept hidden from the public under the Official Secrets Act until 1975.