Traveling Tuesday: Spies in Other WWII Theaters

Traveling Tuesday: Spies in Other WWII Theaters 

Photo: WikiImages

As shared previously, (http://www.lindashentonmatchett.com/2022/04/traveling-tuesday-spies-in-wwii-france.html), many brave man and women worked as spies and resistance fighters in occupied France. However, thousands more worked around the globe in occupied and unoccupied areas to gather intelligence and thwart the plans and operations of the Axis powers. 

Born in Litmanova, Slovakia, Maria Gulovich was eighteen years old when World War II changed her life. A school teacher like her mother, Maria continued to teach even after Germany overran her country. Life was hard, but she managed. Early in 1944, a Jewish friend asked her to hide his sister and her five-year-old son. Later Maria would say, “I never intended to hide anyone. My sister brought the woman’s brother and he was crying and I’m a softie.” He asked if she could hide them for a few days under the woman could find something else. She never did. Maria was reported to the authorities, but fortunately for her the officer was a member of the Resistance. He agreed to move the woman if Maria would act as a courier for the Resistance. Additional tasks included smuggling radios and rescuing downed airmen. 

Photo: WikiImages

Krystyna Skarbek was a Polish agent of the British Special Operations Executive, and has been referred to as the “bravest of the brave.” Vera Atkins, her handler described her as “very brave, very attractive, but a loner and a law unto herself.” She served in France, Poland, and Hungary where she often posed as a journalist. She performed surveillance of the rail, river, and road traffic on the border between Germany and Romania and provided intelligences about Germany’s oil transports from Romania’s Ploiesti oilfields. At great risk to herself, she met with a Gestapo commander claiming to be a British agent and used threats, lies, and a two-million franc bribe to obtain the release of several SOE agents. She spent much of 1940 traveling between Poland and Hungary, obtaining crucial information that was passed to SOE headquarters. After being arrested in Budapest, she feigned symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis by biting her tongue until it bled. The Germans released her, and she fled the country. 

Photo: WikiImages

A Russian whose family fled to France after the 1917 revolution, Nathalie “Lily” Sergueiew was a double agent who worked for MI5 under the code name “Treasure.” The German Intelligence Service tried to recruit her in 1937, but she declined. After France fell, she agreed to work for the Abwehr who sent her to Spain. Upon her arrival in Madrid, she contacted the MI5 representative (and how to you find that out??), indicated she was a German spy, and offered to work for British Intelligence. She was accepted and sent to England. Her handler noted that Lily was “exceptionally temperamental and troublesome.” She sent false information to the Germans, and is credited with playing a significant role in deceiving them about the location of the D-Day landings. Her messages were re-encrypted in the German Enigma machines, providing Bletchley Park with excellent “cribs” used by other Abwehr networks. After the liberation of France, she returned and served in the French Women’s Army Service.

 __________________ 

Spies & Sweethearts

She wants to do her part. He’s just trying to stay out of the stockade. Will two agents deep behind enemy lines find capture… or love? 

1942. Emily Strealer is tired of being told what she can’t do. Wanting to prove herself to her older sisters and do her part for the war effort, the high school French teacher joins the OSS and trains to become a covert operative. And when she completes her training, she finds herself parachuting into occupied France with her instructor to send radio signals to the Resistance. 

Major Gerard Lucas has always been a rogue. Transferring to the so-called “Office of Dirty Tricks” to escape a court-martial, he poses as a husband to one of his trainees on a dangerous secret mission. But when their cover is blown after only three weeks, he has to flee with the young schoolteacher to avoid Nazi arrest. 

Running for their lives, Emily clings to her mentor’s military experience during the harrowing three-hundred-mile trek to neutral Switzerland. And while Gerard can’t bear the thought of his partner falling into German hands, their forged papers might not be enough to get them over the border. Can the fugitive pair receive God’s grace to elude the SS and discover the future He intended?

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/u/m0Od9l