Today's intelligence operation has for its hero a man hardly anyone had ever heard of.

They all tried to hide his story.

Because they considered him a stain on the brow of England.. and a stain on the brow of France.. and a stain on the brow of Nazi Germany all together.. and America felt ashamed of him, and the men of the Soviet Union were enraged by him..!

The Germans and the Allies together called this spy "the worst traitor of the war".

Even his real name nobody knows exactly.. there are documents that point to him as "Harold Cole".. and others "Peter Cole".. and a third "Henry Cole".. and a fourth "Paul Cole".. he has more than 55 names and identities and certificates and birth documents....!

Let us call him "Harold".. brother "Harold" was of English nationality.. born in one of the poor neighbourhoods of London in 1906.. and as soon as he reached the age of 14, he began slipping into apartments and robbing them.

After 7 years he decided to give up theft, and joined work at a company, where he began embezzling its money steadily.. until he was exposed, so he fled and began to practise fraud professionally.. and bounced dozens of cheques.. in the end he was arrested and spent about 10 years in English prisons.. he did not waste them.. he set out to educate himself, and learn and study.. he studied mechanics, blacksmithing and architecture.. and he came out in September, of 1939.. just before the war.

He got involved with a girl and loved her, and decided to become respectable so he could marry her.. so he forged a birth certificate and a university certificate.. and a respectable employment history, as an engineer.. and applied to join the English army, and they agreed.. and he actually entered the army as a soldier, and joined company number 18 of the British Royal Engineers.. and carried the code number "1877989RE".

This company was sent to France, to support it in the war against the Nazi.. and France had declared war on Germany by coincidence on the very date "Harold" came out of prison.. and the English company went to France.. and with it "Harold"...

And indeed "Harold" was skilled in engineering, and very loyal in his work.. to the point that they were impressed by him and he was promoted to the rank of corporal, and then sergeant.

"Harold" could have gone on from here to live his life as a real respectable army officer, or come out later and actually work in engineering and be an honourable citizen, but his nature got the better of him.. so he started stealing the money of the officers and commanders from the "Mess".. until they caught him red-handed one time.. and arrested him.. and imprisoned him in the barracks.

As the Germans advanced into the heart of France.. this company withdrew.. leaving "Harold" imprisoned.. so the Nazis arrested him.. but he somehow escaped from them.. and stole a car.. and disappeared. And on the Belgian border, he presented himself with other forged papers as a British intelligence man.. and called himself Captain "Paul Cole".. and his papers were forged with astonishing precision, and on that basis he began to practise fraud once again, along with the black market trade, which usually thrives in times of war.

Nobody doubted him for a moment, despite his involvement in illegal work.. but his skill and his intense confidence, made everyone believe him, to the point that the French authorities asked him to do extremely dangerous work.

To help the French Resistance with his expertise in the world of intelligence!

And "Harold" accepts the task.. and with the utmost ease, "Harold" went off to help the men of the French Resistance.. and he actually built for them dozens of tunnels, beneath Paris.. in a complex chain, that baffled the Nazis.. and he built for them in these tunnels extremely secure cells.. impossible to escape from.. in order to imprison their captives.. of Nazi soldiers.

And one time a German Nazi patrol stops him.. so he presents himself with the utmost audacity and calm as the secret Nazi Gestapo man "Deram".. and shows them forged papers he was carrying in case the Nazis stopped him one day.. not only that.. he even changes their route.. and orders them to head for a new point.. and he takes from them top-secret papers.. that they were going to deliver to the command.. and he hands them to the French Resistance.

But when "Harold" returns to the French.. and in the tunnels of the French Resistance.. another disaster confronts him.. an accusation of embezzling thousands of francs, from the Resistance's funds.

His standard of living was always high and he frequented fancy bars and expensive hotels.. so when he is confronted.. he gets confused and cannot improvise a story to clear himself.. so they imprison him in one of the cells he had made for them.. and they begin to think about what to do with him.

But when they open the cell they find it empty.. "Harold" had somehow opened the bars of the cell he had built himself.. and escaped.. and melted away into the heart of Paris.

And at the same time the Nazi forces were combing Paris stone by stone and inch by inch, searching for him, until they are suddenly surprised by him handing himself over to them.. and asking to speak with the head of the Nazi intelligence unit in Paris.

And the meeting takes place as "Harold" wanted.. and with extreme calm.. he offers the Nazis to work for them.. and as proof of good faith.. he gave them a list of the names of 30 men from the leaders of the French Resistance.. and he stays in the office of the head of Nazi intelligence drinking coffee and smoking a luxurious German cigarette, in great calm.. until the Germans actually went to the men of the French Resistance.. and arrested them.. and were sure of the truth of what he said.. so the Nazi intelligence men agree that he works with them.. believing that he is still embedded among the men of the French Resistance.

And at the very same time, "Harold" is being watched as he comes and goes among the Nazi forces.. by a British intelligence officer, who does not know him.. and he tries to find out his identity.. so when he fails.. he decides to arrest him.. but "Harold", with extreme confidence.. presents himself to him as a Frenchman.. and shows him a French identity in the name of "Monsieur De Loebelle".. a former engineer, and one of the men of the French Resistance.. and that the Resistance had planted him among the Nazis and made him close to them and a trusted man.. in order to warn them before any attack.

And when the English officer doubts him.. "Harold" tells him code names of Resistance men.. and secret tunnels and movements they had actually carried out.. which Britain knew about.. so the officer is reassured about him.. and believes his story and sighs in relief.. and seeks to recruit him.. to work for England!

"Harold" agrees to work for Great Britain, against Germany.. and they trust him, with his apparent honesty, and their belief that he is one of the heroes of the Resistance.. and they take him along to their secret headquarters.. and set about training him.

And while he is working with the English.. "Harold" informs the Nazis of the tunnels of the French Resistance beneath Paris, one after the other, and there comes a day.. when he goes and pulls off a brilliant plan, that enables him to escape from all of this.. so he informs the Nazis of the location of one of the Resistance's tunnels.. and then he informs the English, the allies of the French, of the time of the German attack.. and then he approaches an English military company, with enviable audacity, and presents himself to them as the officer "Godfrey Cole" from English intelligence.. and gives them a forged identity.. and produces for them a forged document as well.. ordering them to move to a certain tunnel.. in support of the French Resistance.

And while the Nazis, the English and the French were tangled up with one another.. in the ambush that "Harold" had set for them in the tunnels.. "Harold" was giving the Nazi forces the address of the secret headquarters of British intelligence in Paris.. and after that he disappears again in the French capital.. without a single trace pointing to him.

And in the year 1945.. with the defeat of Germany and the fall of Berlin at the hands of the Soviets.. "Harold" travels to southern Germany, and with extreme audacity as well.. he presents himself to the Allied forces, as the officer "Mason" from British intelligence.. and that he is about to bring down an extremely dangerous secret Nazi spy network, aimed at tipping the scales and liberating Berlin.. and he takes from the Soviet commander there a huge sum.. and boards the plane with the utmost dignity to Bulgaria.. and there he disappears once again completely.

The truth is he had gone back to France.. and lived an ordinary life with extreme confidence.. until one time longing for his former sweetheart got the better of him.. so he sent her a letter from France.. pouring out to her his longing and his love and his memories.. so the enraged sweetheart.. who had not seen him for more than six years and did not know where he was.. went and informed the English police.. and gave them the letter.

And in the heart of Paris.. British intelligence men pounce on his luxurious apartment, and he is surprised by them and surrenders without resistance.. so they arrest him, and commit him to the military prison in Paris.. but somehow, unknown.. he manages to get out of his cell.. and disguise himself in the uniform of one of the American military commanders, which he obtained from the military prison.. and he left the gate with the soldiers giving him the military salute in respect.. and he walked out of the Paris military prison barracks in front of everyone's eyes.. and disappeared completely.

And the French, the Americans and the English went mad.. and they distributed his picture to every security man and stuck it on every street lamp in France.

And in the year 1946, there was an ordinary French policeman in Paris.. entering a restaurant and bar, to get a refreshing drink.. when he was surprised that the man sitting next to him at the bar was "Harold Cole" himself.. the one wanted by the intelligence of half the world and the Allied states and all the security services in Paris.. so "Harold" gets up to flee.. but the policeman shoots him, and he meets his death on the spot, bringing his astonishing eventful life to an end.. and this bullet puts an end to the legend of "Harold Cole".

After his death they discovered that he had bought an apartment above this restaurant and bar.. and that he used to come down to eat and drink by an internal staircase.. so no one in the street could possibly meet him or recognise him.

In his life "Harold" caused enormous losses to the English, the French, the Belgians and the Germans and financial losses to the Soviets.

Because of him the Nazi forces arrested nearly 200 individuals from the men of the French Resistance, and executed 60 of them.

"Harold" delayed the liberation of France by bringing down the men of the Resistance.. and allowed the Nazis, through his actions, to advance on other fronts.

"Harold's" file in British intelligence bears the title "The Strange Case of Sergeant Harold Cole" to this very day.

This story is different from the story of the spy who pushed America itself into the war on the side of the Allies.. and that is a story that would take long to tell.. so we will continue our talk later.

And the conversation will have.. a remainder.

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