On October 13, 1941, a British submarine surfaced off the coast of Marathon in Nazi-occupied Greece and quietly put four...

On October 13, 1941, a British submarine surfaced off the coast of Marathon in Nazi-occupied Greece and quietly put four agents ashore. One of them was 29-year-old Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz, a Polish-born swimmer, spy, and saboteur who would become one of the most remarkable resistance figures of World War II. His background was unlike anyone else in the field. Born in Warsaw in 1911, he moved to Thessaloniki as a child when his mother remarried a Greek businessman. He went on to become Greek champion in the 100-meter freestyle in 1934, represented Iraklis Thessaloniki in swimming and water polo, and later played water polo for Poland's national team. He studied agronomy in Belgium and France and spoke six languages, including Greek, Polish, German, French, Russian, and English. After the Axis occupation of Greece, he escaped to the Middle East, joined the Polish Carpathian Rifle Brigade in Palestine, and was recruited by British intelligence as agent 033B. His assignment was to return to occupied Greece, build a resistance network, and begin sabotage operations against German forces. He delivered. His network targeted a German aircraft repair facility in Athens, sabotaging engines on planes headed back into service. Polish diplomatic accounts credit his operations with damaging or destroying around 400 German and Italian aircraft. Using his swimming skills, he also attached explosives to enemy vessels, reportedly including German submarines and transport ships in Greek harbors. The Germans knew someone was hitting them hard. A 500,000-drachma bounty was placed on his head. He was arrested by the Gestapo in December 1941 and escaped. Caught again, he escaped again. Betrayed a third time, he was arrested in Athens on September 8, 1942, and a German military court sentenced him to death three times over. On January 4, 1943, at a shooting range in Kaisariani in Athens, he was taken out with four of his resistance comrades. He freed himself from his handcuffs and made one final attempt to run. He was shot and wounded, dragged back, tied to a post, and executed by firing squad. He was 31 years old. His last words, by multiple accounts, were "Long live Greece, l...