The plaque in memory of Krystyna Skarbek, who has been called Winston Churchill’s favourite spy, has been put up at what was once the Shelbourne Hotel, in London’s central Kensington district, where she lived after the war.
Skarbek, who went by the pseudonym of Christine Granville, is believed to have been the inspiration of at least one character in the James Bond series of novels.
London’s Evening Standard newspaper reported she inspired Bond girl Vesper Lynd in Ian Fleming’s book Casino Royale.
Krystyna Skarbek was born the daughter of an impoverished Polish nobleman and a wealthy Polish-Jewish heiress.
After her country was overrun by Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939, she worked for Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE).
According to the Evening Standard, she completed various missions – “including skiing over the snow-bound Polish border in temperatures of -30°C, smuggling microfilm across Europe which proved Hitler’s plans to invade the Soviet Union and rescuing French Resistance agents from the Gestapo.”
(pk)
Source: standard.co.uk/expressandstar.com