Monument to WWII Female Spies

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henryk
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Monument to WWII Female Spies

#1

Post by henryk » 04 Dec 2013, 22:02

http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/1549 ... ote]Prince Charles unveils monument to WWII female spies
PR dla Zagranicy Nick Hodge 04.12.2013 09:19
Prince Charles was joined by the Polish ambassador to the UK on Tuesday at the unveiling of a monument to female agents, including two Poles, who aided resistance movements in occupied Europe.

Prince Charles at the memorial in Tempsford. Photo: Polish Embassy in the United Kingdom (see source)

The marble and granite memorial has been erected in the village of Tempsford, Bedfordshire, where most of the 75 female agents set off on their missions from the now defunct RAF airbase. The monument includes a mosaic of a dove against a full moon - the agents were invariably dropped at night - and eighty villagers, including children, helped insert the 600 pieces. Prince Charles added the final piece on Tuesday, where he was joined by Polish ambassador to the UK Witold Sobkow, among other dignitaries.

Ambassador Witold Sobkow. Photo: Polish Embassy (see source)

The monument was the brainchild of local academic Professor Tazi Husain, who designed the mosaic itself. Some 21,000 pounds were raised from donors after the parish council backed the initiative. “The stories of these remarkable women - from all walks of life, of many creeds and origins, serving variously as couriers, wireless operators and saboteurs, some of whom lost their lives - have featured in many writings and films since the war but many have not been honoured and a few still remain nameless,” the Tempsford Memorial Trust reflected in a statement. Among those inscribed on the memorial is Krystyna Skarbek (aka Christine Granville), a Polish countess dubbed 'Churchill's favourite spy,” who was dropped into occupied France on 7 July 1944. Also honoured was Elzbieta Zawacka, who after her parachute training in the UK, became the only woman to join the ranks of the crack Polish underground formation 'The Unseen and Silent' (Cichociemni). All in all, some 13 nationalities are represented. All of the agents underwent training in the UK. The monument's inscription reads: “To honour and remember the women who went out from RAF Tempsford and other airfields and ports to aid resistance movements in occupied Europe 1941-1945." (nh)
Source: BBC, tempsfordmemorial.co.uk [/quote]

StefanSiverud
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Re: Monument to WWII Female Spies

#2

Post by StefanSiverud » 04 Dec 2013, 23:34

It's nice to see these spies honoured, but three questions come to mind:

1. Are these all the female spies sent out from British bases in this fashion?
2. Has any reason been given as to why the existing memorials celebrating both men and women spies of this sort were insufficient?
3. Is there or will there be a memorial for the rest of the spies of this sort? (I assume it would be all-male, except for those women that were left out from this memorial, if any)

I realize this is just one step away from being political, so please keep any replies strictly factual as I'd really like to know.


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henryk
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Re: Monument to WWII Female Spies

#3

Post by henryk » 30 Apr 2019, 20:34

http://www.thenews.pl/1/6/Artykul/41822 ... shborn-spy
Remembering legendary Polish-born spy

Polish Radio 30.04.2019 16:30

As part of Polish Heritage Days in the UK, an event has been held in the House of Lords to celebrate a legendary Polish woman who spied for Britain during World War II. Krystyna Skarbek, who was Britain’s first and longest serving female special agent during World War II, is said to have been the inspiration for one of Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories.

Skarbek's life was recounted on Monday in the House of Lords in London by her biographer, award-winning author Clare Mulley.

Michał Owczarek reports.(go to source)
https://www.military-history.org/articl ... killer.htm
Krystyna Skarbek: the SOE’s silent killer

Posted by Seema Syeda May 11, 2018

Clare Mulley on the daring exploits of a highly decorated WWII special agent.

Black and white photograph of Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville - the first woman to work for Britain as a special agent during the Second World War.Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, was the first woman to work for Britain as a special agent during the Second World War. She was also the longest-serving. Her extraordinary contribution to the Allied effort in three theatres of the war led to her being presented with the George Medal and OBE in Britain, the Croix de Guerre with one star from France, and enough ribbons to make any general proud. Yet she died just seven years after the end of the conflict, murdered in a south London hotel with a commando knife much like the one she herself had carried during the war.

SMUGGLER TO SPY
The daughter of a Polish aristocrat and Jewish banking heiress, and a pre-war Polish beauty queen, Skarbek was not an obvious prospect for the British Secret Intelligence Services. Most SIS officers and agents were recruited through the ‘old boys’ network’, and Skarbek was neither British nor male. Nevertheless in late 1939, when she demanded – rather than volunteered – to be taken on, her skills and knowledge made her impossible to turn down.

Britain was anxious to know how the Nazis were organising inside occupied Poland. Skarbek spoke Polish, French, and English, and had excellent contacts in Warsaw and around the country. What made her exceptional, however, was that as a rather bored countess before the war, she used to enjoy smuggling cigarettes into Poland over the high Tatra mountains, so she also knew the secret routes into and out of the country.

SILENT KILLER
The following year, Skarbek undertook four perilous missions, mainly skiing from then-neutral Hungary into Nazi-occupied Poland. She brought information, propaganda, and money to the fledgling Polish Resistance, undertook fact-finding missions, and smuggled back out information, radio codes, coding books, and sometimes microfilm – which she hid inside her gloves.

More than once, Skarbek’s quick thinking saved not only her own life but also the lives of her male colleagues. One report from the official British files simply states that she showed ‘great presence of mind’ and secured the release of both herself and the Polish officer with whom she had been arrested. ‘Great presence of mind’ during interrogation meant making a virtue of her apparent weakness: a hacking cough. Repeatedly biting her tongue, she appeared to cough up blood, a well-known symptom of tuberculosis. Rightly terrified of this disease, the Nazis threw both her, and the man, whom they presumed she had already infected, out into the street.

Among the information that Skarbek smuggled across borders was the first film evidence of Nazi-German preparations for Operation Barbarossa, the planned invasion of their erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union. When this film landed on his desk – according to Winston Churchill’s daughter, Sarah Oliver – Churchill remarked that Skarbek was his favourite spy.

Most would serve as couriers and radio operators in Nazi-occupied France, where able-bodied women travelling around the country aroused less suspicion among the occupying forces than men in the same role. By then, Skarbek was working in Egypt and the Middle East, both providing intelligence and being trained. She studied coding (including Morse), wireless transmission, parachuting, weapons and explosives, and – the subject in which she excelled – silent killing. She was preparing to be dropped behind enemy lines in France in the summer of 1944. It was here that she undertook the work that would make her legendary in the Special Forces.

ORGANISING THE RESISTANCE
Skarbek was sent to France to serve as courier for Special Operations Executive agent Francis Cammaerts, coordinating supplies and training, and providing international and local communications for the French Resistance in the run-up to D-Day in the south of France. Among other achievements, she established the first communications between units of the French Resistance and the Italian partisans, on opposite sides of the Alps. Identifying the Italian commander during a gun battle, she swiftly made contact and brought back his request for ‘guns, uniforms, and packed meat’.

Skarbek soon returned to the mountains, alone again, to secure the defection of an entire Nazi-German garrison on a strategic pass. On the given signal, the conscripted Poles at the garrison deserted, first rendering the heavy weapons useless by removing the breech-block firing pins, and then bringing as many mortars and machine-guns with them as they could carry.

Francis Cammaerts was later arrested at a roadblock with two fellow officers, and sentenced to death. When the local resistance rightly refused to risk the men and materials to stage a rescue, Skarbek cycled over to the prison where the men were being held, and secured the release of all three through a mixture of guile and bluff. There seemed to be no limit to her courage and ability.

LOVE AND FREEDOM
Skarbek commemorated in a bronze bust by artist Ian Wolter at Ognisko Polskie – the Polish Hearth club, in South Kensington.Skarbek commemorated in a bronze bust by artist Ian Wolter at Ognisko Polskie – the Polish Hearth club, in South Kensington.

Krystyna Skarbek was a very passionate woman. She loved action and adrenaline, and she loved men – she had two husbands and many lovers during the perilous war years. Above all, she loved freedom and independence: for herself, for Poland, and for all the Allies in the face of the Nazi advance. Tragically, her life was cut short after the war by a stalker whom she had rejected. Stabbed to death at the Shelbourne Hotel in London, on 15 June 1952, Skarbek never saw her beloved Poland eventually
gain independence.

On 1 May 2018, it will be the 110th anniversary of Krystyna Skarbek’s birth – a good moment to remember the wartime achievements of this remarkable woman.

Clare Mulley is the award-winning author of The Spy Who Loved (Macmillan, 2014), about Krystyna Skarbek, and The Women Who Flew for Hitler (Macmillan, 2018), about test-pilots Hanna Reitsch and Melitta von Stauffenberg.

This article is an extract from the June 2018 issue of Military History Monthly.

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Annelie
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Re: Monument to WWII Female Spies

#4

Post by Annelie » 01 May 2019, 02:15

Very interesting. Thankyou for sharing.
Above all, she loved freedom and independence: for herself, for Poland, and for all the Allies in the face of the Nazi advance. Tragically, her life was cut short after the war by a stalker whom she had rejected. Stabbed to death at the Shelbourne Hotel in London, on 15 June 1952, Skarbek never saw her beloved Poland eventually
gain independence.
How very sad both that she was stabbed to death and never saw Poland gain independence.

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