In this YouTube video, award-winning author Clare Mulley tells the extraordinary story of Krystyna Skarbek (aka Christine Granville) - the first, and the longest serving, female special agent working for Britain in the Second World War. The talk was delivered as part of the Lunchtime Lectures series, - a programme of free talks that takes place at the National Army Museum in London every Thursday at 12.30pm.
I am sharing it with you because this is one of the best talks I have seen. It's just over 49 minutes long, but is absolutely gripping. Enjoy!
Jim
ReplyDeleteI lacked the patience for a real-time broadcast so looked her up on Wikipedia.
Doubtless fascinating.
In my late father's effects were numerous reminiscences of this sort of thing, including a memoir of the WWII forerunner to the SAS. It's never clear to me how much such ventures really achieved in terms of contributing to ultimate victory, as apart from providing a safety valve for letting off high spirits of (mostly, not always) generally upper-class desperadoes - especially once the consequences of retaliations against civilian populations are taken into account. The SAS methods only really bore fruit in irregular warfare against colonial insurgents in the post-war years.
I guess that's a bit spoil-sportish of me, especially as I haven't watched the talk yet.
Morning marcellous. I loved the performance I must admit.
ReplyDeleteInteresting on your Dad. I think that there were very mixed results. The commando raids out of Australia, for example, were badly handled, I think. But there were also considerable successes such as the pipeline used to get Polish pilots and military personnel out. They really added to the war effort.
Great share, thanks for posting
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