Krystyna Skarbek
World War Two’s Most Glamorous Spy: Christine Granville, Winston Churchill’s favorite agent, inspiration for the character Vesper in the James Bond novels.
Christine Granville was a Polish beauty queen who became one of Britain’s most valuable spies.
She was born in 1908 in Warsaw. She was the second child of count Jerzy Skarbek and Stefania Goldfeder, coming from a family of wealthy Jewish bankers. Skarbek grew up at her family’s estate in Trzebnica. She was athletic and a talented equestrian. She had a close relationship with her father being the apple of his eye. He used to call her Vesperale, meaning evening star.
At eighteen years old she got married for the first time, though the marriage lasted a mere six months. Her second partner was Jerzy Giżycki, traveller, publicist and diplomat. For Skarbek, his best feature was his passion for travelling. They got married in 1938 and left for Kenya, where Jerzy Giżycki took up a post at the Polish embassy at Addis Abebie. The decadent and boring banquets were no environment for the feisty Skarbek. After World War II started the two returned to France, having already separated. Skarbek then went to Great Britain alone.
In London she went straight to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, wanting to fight the Germans. The time was right. At the initiative of Churchill, British intelligence created a new department – Special Operations Executive (SOE). The goal of this top secret organisation was to recruit, train and deploy agents in continental Europe to conduct diversion and sabotage. One of the recruits was Krystyna Skarbek.
She began her career as a spy training in a secret facility in New Forest – the so-called Churchill’s School for Spies. Over a couple months she learned how to shoot, blow things up, flee, lockpick or throw someone off her trail. She was taught techniques to withstand pain and torture as well as martial arts. She received a new passport and identity. She was now Christine Granville, nom de guerre Pauline.
In 1941 she was sent to Hungary where, together with a Polish agent of the British Special Forces, Andrzej Kowerski, she was to free Polish officers from Hungarian internment camps and move them towards the territory of the General Government. Skarbek set a trail through the Tatra Mountains. It was February and the weather conditions were tough. Kowerski and she had feelings for each other, though he did not get to keep her. At night, amidst a raging snowstorm and negative 30 degrees weather, she put her survival training from New Forest to a test. She did not fall asleep, knowing she would freeze to death. She used her skills again when she was stopped by the Gestapo – she bit through her tongue, feigning tuberculosis.
“My favourite spy” – were Winston Churchill’s words about Skarbek. He awarded her with the Order of the British Empire. He was very impressed by the daring mission which she had completed. A year earlier, in 1944, the agent was parachuted into enemy territory in France. She was supposed to contact the network of British spies, “Jockey”. Once there, it turned out that their leader, Francis Cammaerts, had been arrested by the Gestapo. Skarbek set off towards the enemy base in Digne-les-Bains, equipped only with a purse and some money. Her confidence and wit threw the warden off, leading to the release of all prisoners.
After the war she worked as a stewardess on the passenger ship Ruahine. That is where she met Ian Fleming – British author with ties to intelligence agencies. They spent many hours together, during which she told him stories of her secret missions. She inspired the writer to create the literary character of Vesper Lynd, 007’s love. It could be said that every female companion of agent Bond shares some traits with Krystyna Skarbek. Confidence, espionage abilities and a difficult past.
