Krystyna Skarbek's reaction to the invasion of her native Poland in 1939 was to storm into the British Secret Services headquarters and demand to be taken on as a spy.

Her first mission was to ski over the Carpathian mountains, in temperatures of -30 degrees celsius, to smuggle money and propaganda to the newly-formed Polish resistance.

Once she got there, though, the main resistance group, the ZWZ, refused to work with her, as she was now officially working for the British.

"We are the Polish Underground," one officer said, "and we do not wish the British to peek inside our underpants."

Still, she managed to ski out of her home country with microfilm of the Nazi preparations for Operation Barbarossa - codename for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union.

The film was passed directly on to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who then proclaimed Skarbek his favourite spy, according to his daughter Sarah.

Krystyna Skarbek performed acts of great bravery on behalf of the British (
Image:
Daily Mirror)

Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek was born 1908 in Warsaw, to Count Jerzy Skarbek, a Roman Catholic, and Stefania (née Goldfeder), who was Jewish.

By 1930, when she was 22, Krystyna's father had died and left the family destitute. She went to work at a Fiat car dealership, but had to leave as the fumes made her very ill.

In fact, she suffered lung scarring, that was later to save her life during the war.

She then married a young Polish businessman, but it didn't last. By 1938, she was married for a second time, to a diplomat, and they moved to colonial Kenya.

When World War II broke out the next year, the couple sailed to England, where Skarbek joined the Secret Service.

An internal memo about her said: “She is a very smart looking girl, simply dressed and aristocratic.

"She is a flaming Polish patriot. She made an excellent impression and I really believe we have a PRIZE.”

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Image:
Getty)

Skarbek was signed up to Section D of MI6, a department set up to find ways of sabotaging Germany’s war efforts.

These included spreading anti‐Nazi propaganda across occupied Europe, using agents in neutral countries to distribute it.

Lines of communication between Hungary and Poland were now badly needed as German propaganda now controlled all news, effectively cutting Poland off from the outside world.

In December 1939, Skarbek was given her first mission, to Poland. She proved her toughness with the epic ski journey.

There was a personal dimension to this job, though: she also went to see her mother in Warsaw, to persuade her to leave Nazi-occupied Poland.

Stefania Skarbek refused; she was determined to stay in Warsaw, a decision made all the more dangerous by her being Jewish.

Tragically, she later died at the hands of the occupying Germans in Warsaw's Pawiak prison.

Fighting on the streets of Warsaw during the Warsaw Uprising, July 1944 (
Image:
Getty)

After seeing her mother, Skarbek attempted to cross the Polish border as she hjad many times before, but this time was caught by Slovakian guards. They threatened to hand her over to the Gestapo.

Skarbek refused to disclose anything during several hours of interrogation, and eventually persuaded her captors to take the money she was carrying and let her go.

Unfortunately, she was now known to the Slovak police, making any further trips very dangerous.

Then, in January 1941, the inevitable finally happened.

The house that Skarbek shared with her colleague and now lover, ex-soldier Andrzej Kowerski, was raided by police.

Krystyna's fake identity papers, in the name of Christine Granville (
Image:
Daily Mirror)

After several fruitless hours of interrogation the Gestapo were anxious to use more brutal methods of questioning, but Skarbek was able to interrupt the investigation by playing on her recent illness.

Biting her tongue hard, she gave the impression that she was coughing up blood and might be suffering from TB.

At a prison hospital she underwent a chest X‐ray, which horrified her doctor: with no idea about her previous lung scarring from exhaust fumes, he concluded that she was seriously ill and arranged for her and Kowerski’s release.

Sir Owen O’ Malley, the British minister in Budapest, issued them with new passports, but they first would need British names to go with them.

O’Malley’s daughter Kate suggested Skarbek become “Christine Granville” and Kowerski decided on “Andrew Kennedy”: although made up on the spur of the moment, both would keep these names for the rest of their lives.

In his memoir 'Hide and Seek', fellow British spy Xan Fielding recalled how Skarbek often half‐jokingly talked of the "horrors of peace," and didn't know what she'd do when the war finally came to an end in 1945.

Her mother's had death in prison after being arrested by the Nazis in occupied Poland meant she could not return home. She became stateless, and had to wait until the end of 1946 to become a British citizen.

She tried living a normal life in London, but unsurprisingly bored of it quickly.

She took a job as a stewardess, carrying out domestic chores onboard the New Zealand cruise liner MV Ruahine.

She joined its maiden voyage from Southampton to Wellington in May 1951.

Krystyna has been honoured by this bust in London's Polish Hearth Club (
Image:
Ania Mochlinska)

One of the staff rules demanded that staff wear their wartime decorations, which made Christine an object of curiosity and caused a certain amount of jealousy, but one crew member was willing to stand by her.

Ex-Merchant Navy seaman Dennis Muldowney, 43, attached himself to Skarbek, and even started to stalk her when she returned to her London home between ship jobs.

In April 1952, he followed her into her building and argued with her, then produced a knife and stabbed Skarbek in the heart. Sadly, she died minutes later.

Now, Krystyna Skarbek's wartime efforts for Britain have been commemorated with a bronze bust of the heroine in the Polish Hearth Club, a place Skarbek would visit after the war to dance and regale officers with her stories.

The idea came from her biographer, Clare Mulley, who wrote The Spy Who Loved about Skarbek.

The writer's husband, Ian Wolter, made the bust. It includes soil from Poland, and from the park in London where Polish special forces were trained.

Mulley says: "She is literally cast in the soil of her native country and the country she adopted after war, countries she fought so hard and courageously for. I think it is beautiful."

Clare Mulley's The Women Who Flew For Hitler is out on July 18