Between 1939 and 1945, 48% of intelligence from occupied Europe in 80,000 reports, Enigma codes, actual V2 systems, the Holocaust details, data to mount military operations, and torpedo several German plans, were brought to Britain by Polish Intelligence, and the SIS took the yield of Polish assets and put it to good use. But they sometimes took Polish assets as well.

 

Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz, born in 1911,  was the fruit of love of a Polish beauty and a Russian count. He spent his first years in Warsaw and Russia, and when his parents divorced and the mother married a wealthy Greek businessman, the new family settled down in Thessaloniki. There, young Jerzy perfected languages and swimming, and next studied agriculture in Belgium. Save for the farming degree, it was a suitable background for a future spy.

 

Still, he felt Polish, and in 1935 succeeded in obtaining the citizenship of his mother’s land. The beginning of WWII found him in Greece, where he immediately got busy helping Polish military personnel reach France or British Palestine, while trying to enlist himself. He failed to get into the uniform, but in 1940 got recruited in Athens by General Staff Section II, was trained by Polish Intelligence station in Jerusalem, and smuggled back to Greece to gather information. And then the man got stolen.

 

The SIS had been eyeing the Pole for some time, and really wanted that daredevil of superb physique, sharp mind and command of six languages. They were ill-prepared for the war and tried to catch up either relying on more efficient intelligence organizations (like the Polish General Staff Section II), or frantically recruiting new assets. As for Szajnowicz, he was no turncoat; the man craved taking a swing at the Germans and decided that what the King’s men lacked in skills, they made up in resources.

 

And allowed them to hire him away. From November 1941, when HMS "Thunderbolt” shipped Agent 033B to Greece, the stolen operative engaged in a flurry of anti-German activity. He obtained and radioed intelligence on the Kriegsmarine and Regia Marina (Italian navy) movements, pinpointed fuel and supply depots, sabotaged industrial plants and machinery, and organized local resistance. In ten months, he did the occupying forces plenty of irreparable damage but finally ran out of luck. And had no Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card.

 

Feeling the net closing, he made several attempts to leave the country but failed; meanwhile, he tried to get the British to evacuate him and even contacted the Polish Intelligence with the same request. The Poles went about getting him out, but the SIS did not rush to help. The Germans finally caught up with Iwanow-Szajnowicz in September 1942, and his London bosses still could have exchanged the compromised agent for a high-ranking German POW. Didn’t happen. Instead, in early January 1943, Jerzy was executed by a firing squad in Athens.

 

Ah, the SIS…snatching an agent from an ally, if ungentlemanly, was a nice job – we’ll give you that. Hiring the guy away was okay, as long as you looked after the guy.

 

Failing to protect him when his usefulness expired was not okay.

​

​

​

Copyright: Iwanow-Szajnowicz family

​

​