Jerzy Szajnowicz-Iwanow (pronounced: Ivanov): Polish man in the English service – the hero of the Greek resistance movement

A misty autumn night falls at the Aegean Sea. At Greek banks near Marathon a British submarine emerges to the surface after a week of sailing from Alexandria. “Thunderbolt” has a few mysterious passengers on her board. A blue-eyed blond man of an athletic build goes down as first to a rubber boat moored alongside the boat side, carrying a little soldered can tin in which there is a hidden radio transmitter. He does not look Greek. But he once confided in commander Crouch – the commander of the ship – that he felt like at home there. Earlier, the commander had been told by one of the heads of intelligence in Egypt that he was his most important passenger – “agent number one to the Balkans”.

The boat of “Thunderbolt” comes to the shore after midnight. Later that same evening, “agent number one”, from now on Nikolaus Tsenoglu, arrives in Athens. Soon a dangerous explosion at the Peloponnesian railway happens. Among the passengers is also Mr Tsenoglu from Crete. He is carefully watching the damaged engine. English “cardiff”, a piece of artificial coal with an explosive thrown into a coal carriage, blew the firebox. Within less than a year from now the English “agent number one” was to become the most dangerous enemy of the Axis countries in the Balkans and the hero of the Greek resistance movement. Allied commanders admitted after the war that his activity ”was equivalent to the combat actions of divisions “.