Is The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare based on a true story?

But how accurate is the film and how did the real life Operation Postmaster unfold? Here's everything you need to know about the true story behind The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare true story: What was Operation Postmaster?

The film is loosely based on the 2014 non-fiction book Churchill's Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII, which tells various true stories about a small force of 'freelance pirates' who were involved in a number of covert missions against the Nazis.

Operation Postmaster specifically was only declassified relatively recently, and the broad strokes of the mission are pretty much the same as presented in the film: it saw a mismatched, motley crew of operatives brought together to neutralise German ships that were supplying U-boats.

How true is The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare?

The outline of the film is historically accurate and most of the characters featured in the film – including Gus March-Phillipps (Henry Cavill), Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson), Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer) and Brigadier Gubbins (Cary Elwes) – are real historical figures.

Where the film version of the mission slightly differs from reality is in some of the specific details. For example, in real life, the group were not tasked with sinking and destroying the ships, but instead stealing them and sailing them far away from Nazi territory – eventually claiming to have discovered them in international waters.

It was actually a fairly bloodless, explosive-free mission in real life, with the group distracting Nazi forces by hosting two parties and making the most of the diversion to steal the ships with very little resistance.

Once they had done so, they sailed them to Lagos, Nigeria, where they were retrieved by British naval forces.

Meanwhile, some details about specific characters are also adapted to make the whole thing a little more cinematic. For example, although González's character Marjorie Stewart was a real spy, she was not actually part of this mission, and there is little evidence to suggest she worked as a field agent at all.

So, you should probably take the exact events depicted in the film with a pinch of salt – it's a fictionalised take on a real mission, rather than a hyper-realistic account of the operation.

“The story itself and the elements are true,” Arash Amel, one of the film's screenwriters, previously told the Los Angeles Times.

What is the James Bond connection in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare?

One aspect of the film that is based on reality is that there is a James Bond connection.

Ian Fleming – played in the film by Freddie Fox – really was involved with the British government, and, according to Cavill, the writer used his character Gus March-Phillipps as one of many inspirations for creating his iconic spy.

"I'm sure Ian Fleming wrote James Bond with a lot of stories, a lot of different characters in mind, but as I understand it, Gus March-Phillipps was one of the stronger influences," he said during an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show.

"And, in fact, they all had code numbers, and Gus was W01, which is what eventually became 007 over time. They all had these little code numbers, just so they could reference each other and be deniable in their operations."

He added: "Also, Gus March-Phillipps, I have recently learned, and I may be wrong in this too, but I'm fairly sure I'm not, was also an amateur author and poet, and he had written a book about a spy based on his adventures as well. And, had he not died during World War Two, he may have beaten Ian Fleming to the punch!"

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is now streaming on Prime Video.

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