by Eva Nichols

Created on: June 04, 2009   Last Updated: June 08, 2009

The blasting of rockets grenades and gunfire feel the air like fourth of July fireworks. The Germans soldiers were getting nearer to the cave where Maria's and her comrades were hiding. Maria Szabo knew how crucial she needed to transmit important messages to the Allied forces. The Nazis had detected her radio transmitter; the lookout person had spotted several trucks of them. Maria earlier had found important information from a German Colonial about a new rocket launcher aimed at London, England. She knew the secret location of the rocket, the day and hour the Nazis planned to launched a rocket against England.

Maria Szabo, a spy for the American OSS or the Office of Strategic Services since the beginning of the war over two years ago. She has monitored the enemy's activities in occupied France, Belgium, as well as Germany since Hitler declared war on the United States. Maria Szabo was her code named, during the time she spied behind enemy lines in France. Her real name was Mary Francis Cornwell of New York City, New York. The daughter of General John Francis Cornwell Chief of Staff of the American Air Corp. She decided to become a spy after the Nazis in Vichy, France executed her British fiance as a spy in 1940.

Her fiance, Thomas Wilder III, had joined the British Special Operations when Germany bombed England. They both were students at Princeton, University before the war. He was pursuing a degree in International Foreign Affairs. He wanted to become an English Diplomat in the United States. Maria was studying Political Science; she wanted to become a lawyer. They fell in love three years before the war had begun in England. Thomas family died during a night bombing in the city of Bath Wick, England. A German bomb hit their mansion, killing his Father, Mother and two sisters. The death of his family overwhelmed him; he decided to fight the Germans by becoming a British spy. He went undercover as a German Journalist; he was a cryptanalyst and a code breaker. His work helped detect the enemy's plans and destinations of future attacks on the Allies. He befriended a Vichy french girl who was unknown to him, a double agent for the Nazis. she later betrayed him by telling the Gestapo police of his secret location. The Nazis arrested him and he was later executed in front of a firing squad as an enemy spy.

Three weeks after his execution, Maria learned about his death. The devastation of the news put her in a mental hospital for several months.

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