The film portrays a time when the very future of the free world seemed at stake. Churchill used the code name "Former Naval Person" whenever he corresponded with United States President Franklin Roosevelt.

The Olympics were naturally put on hold during wartime, but when they were resumed 70 years ago, another "former naval" man was responsible for reviving their greatest symbol.

By coincidence, his surname also began with a C. Lieutenant Commander Frederick William Collins masterminded the progress of the Olympic flame in 1948. In doing so, he fought off criticism from the press, dodged mortar fire in a civil war, outwitted countless bureaucrats, out-maneuvered the "sea lords" and even found time to present an historic lamp to a Princess.

Even though the flame blew out more than once during its journey to London, he ensured it reached the stadium bang on time.

His efforts were so successful that the world beat a pathway to his door for advice on subsequent Relays and he even organised the earliest Queen's Baton Relays, now such an integral part of the Commonwealth Games.

A Torch Relay had been introduced for the first time at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. It proved a spectacular and very popular addition to the Games staged in the Nazi capital, but that was the problem. After the war, many associated the Olympic flame with Hitler and his regime.

Yet, despite misgivings, it was decided that there should be an Olympic flame in 1948. In contrast to the ongoing 101-day journey to Pyeongchang 2018, it was to last less than a fortnight.

Collins had been involved with athletics in both the Royal Navy and at Loughborough University and was certainly a sporting insider.

"I was going for a holiday on the continent and volunteered to spy out a possible route for the flame to cross Europe," he said.

"A few days later I got a letter accepting my kind offer to organise the entire Relay. I was so surprised and intrigued that I decided to do it."

As he started to make his plans, an editorial in a London evening newspaper landed on his desk.

"Quite apart from the bad experiences of the past, an event based on such antiquarian sham and portentous symbolism is out of keeping with the problems of the post war world," thundered the paper.

The guilty editor was Charles Curran, later to become director general of the BBC, an organisation which has broadcast from the Olympic Games for more than 80 years.

Collins hit back with a vigorous retort and Curran was forced to concede that "there is a great deal to be said for the opinion you express so forcibly".

Collins confided to a colleague. "These pressmen can be the very deuce," he said.

He was inundated with correspondence suggesting who the last runner should be and responded patiently. "As it happens I have no say in the selection of the final runner," he said.

Although the Torch was carried overland for the majority of its passage, two sea journeys would still be needed.

Collins requested assistance from the Mediterranean fleet to transport the flame from Corfu to Bari.

"The Organising Committee hope that in this way the Royal Navy will be playing a part in the Olympic festival," he said.

He also asked for passage across the English Channel from Calais to Dover.

The response from the admiralty to this latter suggestion was lukewarm at best.

"To arrange a journey for this purpose would be quite out of the question at this time of financial stringencies," Collins was told.

"Whilst it may be politically desirable to provide transport between Greece and Italy, there is no reason why the cross-channel steamer should not be used from France to England."

Collins did not give up and suggested that the French navy might be approached instead. This evidently sent waves of panic through the corridors of power. The response came back that they were keen to "avoid any impression that we grudge what is asked, or any danger of an approach to another nation". It was eventually decided that HMS Bicester would indeed carry the flame.

Resources were scarce in 1948, but a Torch was designed by Ralph Lavers and manufactured by EMI.

The flame was to be kindled at Ancient Olympia in Greece and a supply of Torches was to be dispatched for the lighting ceremony there.

The bureaucrats at the civil service now got involved and looked as though they might block the entire thing. 

"The home office has classified the Torches as manufactured fireworks," Collins said with more than a hint of exasperation. "This means for shipment the Torches will have to be locked in hermetically sealed tins."

With time so short, this threatened to derail the process. Somehow approval was eventually given and the Torches were on their way.

By this time, the final runner had been chosen. He was medical student John Mark. Although a Cambridge University athlete, he never made it to the Games as a competitor so this remained his greatest Olympic moment.

Collins wrote to Mark: "It is all part of a play and requires a certain amount of acting to make it work." He asked Mark to contact the understudy and future Olympian Angus Scott to pass on any observations.

Collins cheerily signed off his missive: "I hope your arm is getting used to it."

He headed to the Mediterranean to make the final arrangements. He was feted in Malta but when he arrived in Athens it was clear that the lighting ceremony was in jeopardy. A civil conflict was raging in Greece at the time and the leader of the rebel forces, one General Markos, had even threatened to shell the Relay.

In those days, the Hellenic Olympic Committee were based in the centre of Athens.

It soon became clear that taking the Torch to the Greek capital for a formal handover was out of the question. Collins dispatched a telegram. "Owing to the fact that the civil disturbances may not permit the Greeks to carry the flame over the route that they at present propose it is requested that HM ship may be available to pick up the flame at any other port," he said.

In fact, such was the fighting, that even the designated High Priestess was unable to reach Olympia for the ceremony. A local girl from Pyrgos was pressed into service at the last moment.

The flame itself was taken from Olympia to Katakolo and then by a Hellenic navy ship to Corfu. From there HMS Whitesand Bay took it to the Italian port of Bari. Captain John Brothers recalls that the ship's company received a package containing various components but no instructions. They were however provided with "joining goo" and lashed up an improvised cauldron.

The flame made landfall at Bari and was carried through Italy. It crossed the mountains into Switzerland, visited the International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters in Lausanne and then went up through Luxembourg, Belgium and France before crossing the Channel. Pointedly, the route did not go through Germany.

Collins, meanwhile, had a date at Buckingham Palace to present Princess Elizabeth with a commemorative Greek lamp or lychnos.

When the flame came ashore in Dover, it was carried by chief petty officer Herbert Barnes, known as "Chiefy". However, keeping it alight proved to be a real problem. Barnes himself described it as "a spring loaded firework". In the first few hours, it went out at least five times. 

Some stayed up into the small hours to watch it pass and some runners had to cajole friends into transporting them to their assigned spot, which was no easy task at a time of petrol rationing.

On the big day, it arrived at Wembley Stadium to be greeted by cheering crowds and Mark lit the cauldron in front of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

Collins was not yet finished with his work. A separate Relay down to the West Country took the flame which would burn at the sailing events at Torquay.

If the Torch Relay had been a flop, the enthusiasm for continuing it might not have been so great. As it was, it flourished over that memorable 48-hours to become a fixture in the Olympic programme.

In the 1960s, Collins established the Torch Trophy Trust as a charitable institution with IOC member Sir Arthur Porritt as its chairman. The aim was to encourage the organisation of sports clubs to aid participation. It sounds a familiar refrain even 55-years later.

"I was given one of the two Torches made to carry the flame into the stadium and though it is a lovely thing to have, I kept thinking it should be put to some practical use," said Collins.

The idea was to award replica Torches for "notable voluntary service" to encourage "the organisation of sport at the bottom level".

Collins would also routinely respond to correct press reports that mistakenly reported that the flame had been lit at Mount Olympus. The correct location was of course Olympia, a completely different place.

In 1958, a new ritual had been added to the Commonwealth Games in Cardiff. Instead of a Torch, a Baton containing a greeting from Queen Elizabeth II was to be carried from London to Cardiff.

Collins was the obvious choice to lead the operation and brought his 1948 experience to bear. Local volunteer organisers and runners were used once more.

The distances involved were such that there was no Queen's Baton for the Perth Games in 1962 but Collins was pressed into service again in 1966 and even took to the air to accompany the Baton to Kingston, Jamaica.

In 1970, the Games were held in Edinburgh, but what might have been one of the shortest Relays turned into another great voyage because the Baton was despatched to Scotland from Canada.

Not everyone was impressed.

"What message could The Queen possibly have in mind that requires such a circuitous route for its conveyance?" asked Auberon Waugh in his column for The Times newspaper.

Collins hit back. "The misinformed sneers of Mr Waugh's cynical have denigrated many of those qualities, though unfashionable to the modern style of mocking journalism are of the greatest value in the public as well as the private life of a nation," he said.

Collins had one last Relay to organise. The Baton departed from the Queen's Christmas residence at Sandringham for Christchurch, New Zealand in 1974.

Collins died in 1989 but those who have been involved with the Torch Relay to Pyeongchang will know exactly what he went through all those years ago.