I Was a Spy!: The Classic Account of Behind-the-Lines Espionage in the First World War
By Marthe McKenna and Winston Churchill
()
About this ebook
Winston Churchill 1932
With her medical studies cut short by the 1914 German invasion, her house burned down and her father arrested for suspected ‘sharpshooting’, it was perhaps unsurprising that the multi-lingual Marthe Mckenna (née Cnockaert, codename ‘Laura’) was recruited by British Intelligence. At the time she worked as a nurse tending the wounds of occupying soldiers, and as a waitress in her parents’ café in the Belgian border town of Roulers.
I Was a Spy! is McKenna’s vivid narrative of these breathtaking adventures as she, aided by a gallant band of loyal locals, goes undercover to sabotage enemy phone lines, report suspicious activity or train movements, and even instigate an aerial attack on a planned visit by the Kaiser.
This thrilling account goes on to explain how, in 1916, the young nurse was caught by the Germans placing dynamite in a disused sewer tunnel underneath an ammunition dump. She was sentenced to the firing squad and only survived due to the Iron Cross honor received as a result of her earlier medical service . Mckenna was later mentioned by Douglas Haig in British Despatches and was awarded the French and Belgian Orders of the Legion of Honour for her espionage work.
Marthe McKenna
In addition to receiving the Iron Cross from the Germans for her wartime contribution as a nurse, Marthe Mckenna (née Cnockaert, codename ‘Laura’) was later mentioned by Douglas Haig in British Despatches and was awarded the French and Belgian Orders of the Legion of Honour for her espionage work. I Was A Spy! was first published in 1932 with an extended Foreword by Winston Churchill and was made into a film in 1933 directed by Victor Saville and starring Madeleine Carroll. The success of the book encouraged Marthe to write further memoirs of her wartime exploits, and those of her small band of fellow spies, and also led to a series of espionage novels written in collaboration with her British husband John “Jock” McKenna.
Related to I Was a Spy!
Related ebooks
Undercover Operator: An SOE Agent's Experiences in France and the Far East Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Secret Duties of a Signals Interceptor: Working with Bletchley Park, the SDS and the OSS Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCaptured Memories, 1930–1945: Across the Threshold of War: The Thirties and the War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMastermind of Dunkirk and D-Day: The Vision of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Most Reasonable Of Unreasonable Men: Eisenhower As Strategic General Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow Churchill Saved Civilization: The Epic Story of 13 Years That Almost Destroyed the Civilized World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSylvia's Lovers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Codebreaker Girls: A Secret Life at Bletchley Park Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Churchill Companion: A Concise Guide to the Life & Times of Winston S. Churchill Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Kind: a Christmas short story of post-WWII Munich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tracks Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Almost Forgotten: The Men from the Bridgeville and South Fayette Area Who Lost Their Lives While Serving in the Military Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters from the Blitz: Telling America the Truth about the British Experience of War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMary Churchill's War: The Wartime Diaries of Churchill's Youngest Daughter Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Fled for Refuge: Refuge, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Footprints on the Sands of Time: RAF Bomber Command Prisoners of War in Germany 1939–1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Spitfire Girl: One of the World's Greatest Female ATA Ferry Pilots Tells Her Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Who Broke the Wartime Codes? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Fintan O'Toole's Heroic Failure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Monuments Men James Rorimer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTop Secret Files: World War II: Spies, Secret Missions, and Hidden Facts from World War II Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5His Finest Hour: A Biography of Winston Churchill Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rumors from Shanghai Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDawn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA More Civil War: How the Union Waged a Just War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Tuscan Treasury: Stories from Italy’s Most Captivating Region Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Peacock Throne Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Rajah Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Wars & Military For You
How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unacknowledged: An Expose of the World's Greatest Secret Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the Atomic Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When I Come Home Again: 'A page-turning literary gem' THE TIMES, BEST BOOKS OF 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for I Was a Spy!
0 ratings0 reviews