Christine Granville

Christine Granville (born Krystyna Skarbek) was Churchill's favourite spy and one of the longest-serving SOE agents. A Polish countess, she escaped occupied Poland on skis, smuggled intelligence out of Hungary, and parachuted into southern France ahead of the Allied invasion in August 1944.In France, she single-handedly bluffed the Gestapo into releasing two captured SOE agents by claiming Allied troops were about to arrive. Her combination of charm, audacity, and physical courage was legendary. Tragically, she was murdered in London in 1952 by a rejected admirer. Her Birmingham connections come through SOE training operations.