As the model for the female lead in the James Bond series of spy novels, Christine Granville is considered the bravest, most resilient and mysterious female spy of World War II.

Christine Granville in 1950. Photo: NYTimes

Christine Granville was the most highly regarded spy by the then British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, and was awarded medals of gallantry by both the British and French governments. She was also the prototype for the female spy character Vesper Lynd in the first James Bond novel.

Granville's real name was Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek, and she was of Polish descent. Her father was an aristocrat and her mother was a wealthy Jewish heiress. Before the war, Granville enjoyed the life of a noblewoman, having been runner-up in a Polish beauty contest in 1930. But World War II changed her life completely.

In September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Granville was in South Africa with her husband, a diplomat. Faced with the national crisis, she quickly decided to go to London and register as a British intelligence officer.

In her application, Granville proposed to infiltrate Polish territory by skiing across the Carpathian Mountains, thereby helping the British government to conduct political propaganda in the Polish capital of Warsaw. “She was fearless, a passionate Polish patriot, a skier, a great female adventurer,” the British Special Service’s report on the spy said.

She was accepted into the D Intelligence Department, which later developed into the Special Operations Executive (SOE). This was an intelligence group that was personally decided to be established by Prime Minister Churchill, with the mission of conducting sabotage, subversion, and espionage activities behind enemy lines. After entering the profession, this female spy was granted a British passport with the new name Christine Granville and the operational code name Willing.

Granville's first stop in her intelligence career was Hungary, Poland's neighbor. Her mission was to smuggle Polish dissidents and soldiers out of the occupied zone to continue fighting for the Allies. Granville's regular collaborator was Andrzej Kowerski, a Polish patriot who had lost a leg. He was also her longest-time lover.

According to historian Clare Mulley, who wrote a book about Granville's life, there are many legendary stories about this female spy's calm and cool working style. She once skied across a mountain path filled with frozen bodies of refugees. She also ran from Nazi air force bullets in vast mountainous areas, or had to bite her tongue to trick enemy intelligence into thinking she had pneumonia to escape.

According to legend, Granville also had the ability to control animals. According to legend, once Granville and some guerrillas were hiding in the bushes when a ferocious German shepherd sniffed them out, and she immediately hugged the dog. "The dog immediately lay down next to her, paying no attention to her master's whistle," said scholar Mulley.

However, researcher Mulley also said that Granville was a person who knew how to create stories to “mythologize herself”, so not all stories about this legendary spy’s life were true to historical facts. “She told everyone the story of taming the enemy dog,” Mulley said.

The amorous female spy

Granville was a very attractive and amorous woman. During her career, she had many lovers and also abandoned many men. Many of them could not stand it. According to the British intelligence agency's files, one of Granville's lovers in Budapest deliberately injured himself to keep her.

Despite her complicated intelligence career and personal life, Granville was “politically naive.” “Anyone who offered her a mission that would be useful in liberating her country, she would not refuse,” said scholar Mulley.

In 1944, Granville was sent to southern France to assist SOE agent Francis Cammaerts, who would later become her lover. Her mission was to pass intelligence and weapons between anti-fascist organizations, as well as to persuade Polish soldiers in the German army to surrender to the Allies.

Granville's greatest achievement was to rescue Cammaerts and two other agents from death row, who had been arrested by the Gestapo. The spy bribed the warden to gain entry to the prison. There, she claimed to be the niece of Field Marshal Montgomery of England, and warned the leader of the French informant network that if they executed the three agents, Allied reprisals would follow. The man believed Granville and fled with the agents.

After the war, Granville's intelligence group was disbanded. But soon after, the Cold War broke out, and like many other Polish exiles, Granville was unable to return to her homeland. During peacetime, the once-famous spy held a number of jobs, including telephone operator, sales assistant, and her last job as a waitress at a transport company.

“Granville became moody, demanding, unable to bear working, at least not in a job she liked. She didn’t want to be a typist, a wife, or a mother, she wanted to be a spy,” said scholar Mulley.

In June 1952, Granville was stabbed to death in the lobby of a London hotel by her former lover and colleague, Dennis Muldowney. Muldowney was sentenced to death. But right up to his execution, the man insisted that he loved Granville very much and could not bear to be abandoned by her.

According to Vnexpress