Women who Spied for Britain

by Walker, Robyn

  In 1938 she met Jerzy Giżycki, a wealthy man who already had links with the British Secret Service. He had returned to Zakopane from an adventurous life abroad to enjoy the beauty of the mountains, along with skiing, hiking and the town’s lively social scene. It was here that he connected with Krystyna, whom he described in his memoirs as an ‘excellent horse-woman, fair skier, and the most intrepid human being I have ever met – man or woman’.2 Despite a considerable age difference (Giżycki was nearly fifty), the two were married in November 1938. Giżycki was an adventurer with a passion for Africa, and both he and Krystyna were living there when the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939. Shocked by the speed and brutality of the German assault on their homeland, and stirred by a deep sense of patriotism (mingled with, perhaps, a thirst for adventure), the couple left immediately for Great Britain, arriving in October 1939. They both offered their services to the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). A notation in Krystyna’s personnel file, dated 7 December 1939, reads, ‘She is a very smart looking girl, simply dressed and aristocratic. She is a flaming Polish patriot … an expert skier and a great adventuress … She is absolutely fearless herself and certainly makes that impression.’3

  The British were extremely interested in using Krystyna. Desperate to establish reliable intelligence about what exactly was happening in Occupied Poland, as well as to let the Poles know that Britain and France had not deserted them, the British viewed Krystyna’s language skills and knowledge of her homeland’s geography as incredibly valuable. While Giżycki wanted to depart for Finland to join the fight against the invading Soviets, Krystyna was keen to return to her homeland. In late December the British placed her on active service and gave her the identity Madame Marchand. She was sent to Budapest, Hungary, ostensibly to work as a journalist but with the intention of making forays into Poland to spread subversive propaganda and to convince the Poles that they had not been forgotten by the British.

  Hungary had not yet been drawn in to the war but, in the hopes of regaining some of the territory it had lost after the First World War, Hungarian policymakers were very friendly to the Nazi regime, and the Germans exerted a great deal of influence over Hungarian politics. In November 1940 Hungary signed the Tripartite Pact, an agreement that formalised the partnership between Germany, Italy and Japan, and outlined the aim of mutual cooperation between the countries, as well as recognising each country’s spheres of interest. Therefore, when Krystyna was sent into Hungary, she was in fact entering very dangerous territory. In Budapest, Krystyna became reacquainted with Andrzej Kowerski, a man she had known previously in Poland. Kowerski was a powerful and athletic man who, despite missing a leg (which had been amputated after Kowerski was accidently shot in the foot during a shooting party), served bravely with the Polish army during the German invasion, and was awarded Poland’s highest award for gallantry. Separated from her husband, Krystyna soon became Andrzej’s lover as well as his partner in covert operations. Kowerski focused on helping interned Polish soldiers escape Occupied Poland, while Krystyna’s missions focused more on intelligence gathering and courier work than on her original assignment as a propagandist. Krystyna made several trips across the mountains into Poland. The first was during February 1940, when she and two others made the perilous trek across the mountains into Polish territory. They risked both German patrols and blizzards, but eventually made it to Zakopane, where Krystyna rested a few days before travelling on to Warsaw. Once in the capital, she spent several weeks gathering information and establishing contacts among the Polish population. Granville was shocked at the Germans’ brutal treatment of the Poles, and was well aware how dangerous her mission was. She made contact with the underground Polish press and gave them the British propaganda material to reproduce and distribute. Krystyna also made some assessments of her own, reporting to the British that their propaganda leaflet droppings were well received by the Poles, but correctly assuming that the population might appreciate news of the war instead. She recommended that British and Allied news reports be broadcast at fixed times and on fixed wavelengths so that regular Polish radio sets could pick them up. By connecting with numerous local resistance groups Krystyna collected a wealth of information for the British, including details about German troop transports heading towards Russia or Turkey and Romania, the distribution of military units throughout the country, existing industrial capacity in Poland, and how German supplies were being transported throughout the region. Armed with this intelligence, Krystyna caught a train to the mountains, leaping from her car as the train slowed upon its approach to the station. From there she hiked cross-country for several days through Slovakia before finally arriving at the Hungarian border and making her way back to Budapest.

  In October 1940 a courier arrived from Poland with information that some British airmen were hiding in Warsaw and needed to find passage back to Britain. Krystyna offered to guide the men out, and set off in November, taking a route through Ukraine with a partner, Father Laski. By the time they reached Warsaw, they discovered that the Polish Underground had already sent the airmen out through a Russian escape route, where most of the men had been captured and turned over to the Germans. Two managed to make it back to Warsaw, and Father Laski escorted them back to Budapest. Krystyna remained behind to make inquiries about her family. She finally tracked down her mother, and pleaded with her to leave the country. The Germans’ anti-Jewish measures were becoming more and more oppressive. Jewish property was being confiscated, and Jews were being rounded up and placed in ghettos or forcibly deported to work camps. Krystyna recognised the danger, but Stefania did not. Having converted to Catholicism, Stefania had never registered as a Jew and was in fact living, illegally, outside of the Jewish ghetto. Krystyna made plans with friends to hide her mother in an isolated forest cabin until arrangements could be made to transport her out of Poland, but Stefania refused to leave Warsaw. Frustrated by her mother’s obstinacy, Krystyna had no choice but to leave Poland without her. The Countess Skarbek was arrested by the Gestapo shortly after Krystyna’s second visit, and Krystyna never saw her mother again.

  Krystyna’s work during this period was extremely important. She passed on valuable bits of intelligence to the British, and established an escape line for both Poles (seeking to escape the harshness of German occupation, or conscription into forced-labour camps) and prisoners of war (POWs) to slip out of Poland. In fact, two British prisoners who were taken captive at Dunkirk used Krystyna’s escape line, and were the first POWs to make it back to Great Britain. Krystyna was arrested twice during the time she worked out of Budapest. The first time she was stopped by border guards as she was trying to cross back into Poland. She managed to destroy the incriminating documents she was carrying by flinging them into a river, and convinced the guards that they would be better off simply taking the large sum of money she had in her possession for themselves than handing both her and the money over to the Germans. Her second arrest came in January 1941. Krystyna and Andrzej’s work smuggling both Polish and British prisoners out of Poland, and their intelligence-gathering activities (which provided the British with detailed information regarding the position of ammunition and aircraft factories in Poland), had attracted the attention of both Hungarian and German authorities. On 24 January 1941 they were arrested by the Hungarian police and turned over to the Gestapo for questioning. Interrogated separately, the lovers steadfastly denied working for the British. Krystyna proceeded to bite down hard upon her tongue, causing bleeding. She feigned a coughing fit as well, causing immediate concern among her captors that their prisoner was in the advanced stages of tuberculosis. An X-ray of her lungs revealed the scarring she had suffered as a result of the gas fumes from the Fiat plant where she had worked before the war. The Germans, perhaps convinced by Krystyna and Andrzej’s denials of involvement with the British, or uneasy about interrogating such a highly contagious prisoner, released the pair.

  The British realised that Krystyna and Andrzej needed to be rem
oved from Hungary, and provided them with British passports bearing the names Christine Granville and Andrew Kennedy. It was at this time that Granville cheekily took seven years off her age, and listed her birth year as 1915. They travelled through Belgrade to Sofia, where Granville provided the British with a microfilm (which had been hidden inside Kennedy’s fake leg) showing German armour amassing along the Soviet border, a clear indication that the Germans were about to turn on the Soviets. From Sofia they travelled to Istanbul and then on to Cairo, where SOE expected them to report for further duty. Interestingly, it was Granville’s husband, from whom she was still estranged but not divorced, who took over the work she left behind in Hungary.

  In Cairo, both Granville and Kennedy encountered a troubling situation. Although they still received salaries from SOE and were engaged to participate in a few minor reconnaissance operations, the pair found themselves effectively unemployed. There were unsubstantiated rumours that their organisation (consisting of couriers, guides and intelligence contacts whom they had recruited themselves) in Budapest had been infiltrated by the Gestapo, and these rumours also implied that Granville and Kennedy may be working for the Germans. Memos in Granville’s file indicate that the British did, at the end of 1941 and in the early part of 1942, consider both the organisation that Kennedy and Granville had been working with and the pair themselves to be suspicious. All support of Granville’s organisation was withdrawn, and a memo dated 20 January 1942 indicates that the British viewed both Granville and Kennedy as potential sources of danger. The Polish government in exile, which was formed after the German and Soviet occupation of Poland in 1939 and based in London, also resented the fact that Granville was working for the British. The government in exile commanded all Polish forces operating in Poland and abroad, and the British government had promised the Poles that all communications with Poland would be done through official Polish channels. Granville had reported directly to the British, and many in the exiled Polish government felt that this violated the promise Britain had made to them. There also was concern about sending the pair back into the field since their well-known reputations, Granville’s stunning physical appearance and Kennedy’s artificial leg made it difficult to conceal their identities. With all of these factors at play, both Granville and Kennedy spent most of 1941 and 1942 effectively sidelined from the war effort. However, by 1943 SOE was convinced of Granville and Kennedy’s loyalty, and began actively training the pair with an eye towards using them as agents once again. Patrick Howarth, head of the Polish-Czech section of SOE in Cairo, was one of Granville’s most ardent supporters and stated, after the war, that the most useful contribution he made to the war effort was reinstating Granville into active service. As with many female agents, Granville was assigned to the FANYs (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry), and senior FANY officer Gwendoline Lees was put in charge of briefing her. Lees was so deeply impressed with her charge that she named her first daughter after her. After the war Lees recounted that she felt Granville was one of the most remarkable women she’d ever known, and recalled both her deep love for Andrew Kennedy and her total dedication to the liberation of her Polish homeland. After her recruitment into the FANY, Granville was sent for training in the use of wireless transmitters, parachute jumping, demolition, preparation of reception committees and the creation of simple personal disguises. In early 1944, Kennedy was sent to Italy to act as an instructor at a parachuting school. In May 1944, the decision was made to drop Granville into France.

  Francis Cammaerts was one of SOE’s most distinguished agents. Code-named Roger, he headed up the Resistance network JOCKEY, which extended throughout south-eastern France. In September 1943, Cammaerts lost his courier, Cecily Lefort, when she was arrested by the Gestapo. The majority of French males had been conscripted into the German labour force and therefore could not roam about the countryside without raising suspicion. A female courier was vital to the continued success of Cammaerts’ network. Brooks Richards, Head of SOE from 1943 to 1944 in Corsica and southern France, had met Granville and felt she was ‘a most remarkable lady’, and he was determined to have her fill the role as Cammaerts’ courier.4 Assigned the code name Pauline and the cover name Jacqueline Armand, Granville parachuted into France on 8 July 1944. With her she took a loaded revolver, torch, identification documents, ration cards, money and an ‘L’ tablet – a cyanide pill that could kill instantly, should an arrested agent prefer death to torture.

  Blown many miles off course, Granville had a rough entry into France. She landed badly, bruising her tail bone and damaging her revolver beyond repair. Since she disliked firing guns, the loss of the weapon didn’t bother her, and she quickly buried her parachute and the damaged revolver before going in search of her reception committee. Granville soon linked up with Cammaerts and got immediately to work. She organised reception committees for the drops of arms, ammunition and supplies, and often accompanied the reception committees on their late-night missions. She then had to organise the unpacking and delivery of the dropped materials to the Resistance. Most of these activities took place during the evenings but Granville’s days were full too. She worked tirelessly at her courier duties, taking messages to all members of Cammaerts’ network as well as to the Resistance. Her first week in France was busy, but was about to become even more intense. The region in which Granville had been dropped was about to become the site of a major battle.

  A large group of French Resistance fighters had declared the Vercors plateau liberated from German occupation. This declaration ignored the fact that the plateau was located well within German-occupied territory. The Vercors is a heavily forested and mountainous area covered with villages and farms. The French Resistance felt well protected in this area, as it was a natural fortress, and had amassed a large number of armed fighters. British planes had been dropping supplies into the Vercors since early June, but on 14 July 1944 hundreds of Allied planes flew overhead, dropping over a thousand containers of supplies into the region. Guns, ammunition, food, clothes and cigarettes were parachuted down, adorned with the message, ‘Bravo lads. Vive la France.’5 While the Resistance fighters were exhilarated by the drop, cheering and celebrating their windfall, Cammaerts was dismayed, as the drop had occurred in broad daylight in full view of the Germans. He knew the Germans would not stand idly by and allow the situation in the Vercors to continue unchecked, and his dismay was well founded. The German response to the presence of this large group of French Resistance fighters was immediate and brutal. Carpet-bombing and strafing of the plateau soon began. With superior manpower and weapons, the Germans bottled up the Vercors, guarding every land and water exit and entry. Villages were occupied and burned, and numerous civilians were tortured and executed. Panic began to spread through the region, and both Granville and Cammaerts sent numerous radio requests for help, pleading for more weapons and for the nearest German airfield to be bombed. Their requests went unanswered. Early in the morning of 20 July Granville was delivering a message for Cammaerts to a barn at the end of the Vassieux airstrip when hundreds of enemy gliders descended upon the field. Under a steady barrage of machine-gun fire, Granville managed to make her way down the hill at the back of the strip and report the German landing to Cammaerts. With the sense that all was lost, Granville and Cammaerts managed to escape through the last available exit route on 22 July 1944.

  After this narrow escape, Granville resumed her courier duties for Cammaerts, as well as embarking on several missions of her own creation. Granville was convinced that she could incite large-scale desertions by foreigners (manpower from all German-occupied territory) who had been conscripted into the German army, and by the troops of German allies. By spreading the word that the Allied armies had the Germans on the run, many of the foreign conscripts saw an end to their subjugation and leapt at the opportunity to turn on their German oppressors. Similarly, soldiers from the Italian armies (German allies) proved eager to sever their ties with the Germans. Granville made contact with Russian, Italian a
nd Polish army groups, and was extremely successful in convincing hundreds of soldiers either to desert or to join the Resistance. The influence of her personality extended to animals as well. One evening, as she was attempting to avoid a German patrol, Granville found herself seeking refuge under some brush in a roadside ditch. One of the Alsatian dogs from the patrol discovered her, but before the dog could sound the alarm Granville wrapped her arms around it and pulled it to her side. The Germans called for the dog, but he remained by Christine’s side all night. The dog became devoted to Granville and remained with her until the Liberation. Granville had many close calls as she went about her work, and was caught by the Germans on more than one occasion. Each time, however, she managed to talk her way out of arrest by playing the part of a simple peasant girl who could not possibly have anything to hide. On one such occasion, though, she did have to resort to a threat of violence. Attempting to pass through the Alps with some Italian partisans, she and one of the Italians were discovered by a border patrol. With a grenade in each hand, Granville threatened to blow up the lot of them if the Germans did not let them go. Convinced of her sincerity, the border guards swiftly departed, and Granville and her companion slipped off into the underbrush.

  Probably one of Granville’s most important and successful missions involved the subversion of the garrison manning the fort at Col de Larche. The fort was located high in the mountains, and the garrison was charged with protecting a mountain pass that allowed the Germans to move troops through the region. When Granville heard that the garrison consisted mainly of Poles who had been conscripted into the German army, she decided to make the treacherous climb through the mountains in an effort to convince the Poles to join the Resistance. After almost two days of climbing, she managed to make contact with them and, speaking to them in their own language, explained to them that the Allied landings in the South of France were imminent. She convinced the men that the Germans were on the verge of a crushing defeat, and the garrison deserted en masse, joining Granville and the Resistance, and bringing with them all of the garrison’s small arms. They worked together to blow up the road over the mountain pass, effectively eliminating the opportunity for the Germans to use this route to bring in reinforcements against the Allied landings in the south. This mission was undertaken at incredible personal risk, because Granville was forced to reveal to the garrison troops who she was, and who she was working for. If the garrison had not agreed to join her, she very likely would have been arrested and executed by them for being an enemy agent! Granville was extremely proud of the success of this mission but her jubilation was unfortunately short-lived. As she was returning home, she received word that her boss, Francis Cammaerts, had been captured. This news was to lead to the most daring exploit of her career.