Granville, Christine (1915–1952)

Polish secret agent during World War II . Name variations: Countess Krystina Skarbek. Born Countess Krystina Skarbek in Poland in 1915; died in London in 1952; married George Gizycki.

One of many women who served as secret agents during World War II, Christine Granville was born in Poland in 1915 as Countess Krystina Skarbek, the daughter of a distinguished Polish family. Known for her beauty and vibrant personality, she was winner of a "Miss Poland" contest during her teens. She was living in Addis Ababa with her second husband when the war broke out, and she went immediately to England to offer her services to British Intelligence. Accepted, she was assigned to Budapest, Hungary, where she undertook the dangerous mission of smuggling Poles and other Allied officers out of Poland. Seemingly without fear and meticulous about security, she made three journeys into Poland and also carried out several missions in the Balkans before being sent to France in 1944. On this assignment, she often parachuted onto the Vercors Plateau in Southern France, where, as a courier for the Hockey network, she maintained contact with the French Resistance and the Italian partisans. Her successes included initiating the surrender of a German garrison of Polish troops located on the Italian frontier and bluffing the Gestapo into freeing two of her captured comrades three hours before they were to be executed. She was awarded the George Medal and an OBE by the British government. Ironically, after surviving so many dangerous missions during the war, she was murdered by a spurned suitor in London in 1952.