Our
next guest was an American born boy who grew up in a
small village on the Greek island of Crete. In his last
year in high school, he witnessed the German invasion of
Crete, in May of 1941, during the early days of WW II.
At the age of eighteen, he joined a resistance group
headed by his brother, and supplied crucial information
to the SOE, which is an arm of the English Intelligence
Service. This resistance group is uncovered, resulting
in their hasty evacuation by the SOE, to Cairo, Egypt.
In Cairo, this author and his brother were asked to join
the English Intelligence Service, but rather, pursued
the American OSS, which is the Office of Strategic
Services, the newly formed American intelligence
counterpart. They were enlisted into the US Army, and
attached to the OSS, where he was trained in the SI, or
Secret Intelligence sector, which included parachute
jumping, wireless/Morse code training, commando/defense
training, locks/safe-cracking techniques, escape
methods, and environment assimilation techniques.
After being transformed into a skilled “spy”, he was
sent back to Greece undercover, and along with a Greek
naval intelligence officer, set up a communications cell
in Salonica, Greece’s second largest city, whereby daily
coded messages to OSS Headquarters in Cairo were sent.
One such message describes the course of events
surrounding the bombing of the main railroad yard in
Salonica, and the loss of thousands of German troops, as
well as recalling the near-capture encounters with the
German Gestapo and the Greek police. In his book, “I Was
Trained To Be A Spy”, he also recounts his personal
experiences of his escape from Crete through the
mountains, the evacuations by an English torpedo boat,
his OSS training, the return mission to Greece, and his
final return to the United States. It is our honor to
welcome a truly dedicated and decorated veteran of the
US Army to Your Life Matters Show so good morning Helias
Doundoulakis.
Helias Doundoulakis was born in Canton, Ohio, of Greek
immigrant parents, in 1923. At the age of two, he and
his family immigrated to Crete, Greece, and there they
lived uneventfully until German paratroopers invaded the
island in May of 1941. After a two-year involvement with
the Cretan resistance and the British SOE, he was
evacuated by the SOE to Cairo, Egypt. He enlisted in the
United States Army and was recruited into the fledgling
American spy service, the OSS. There, as a novice, he
was schooled in the SI of the OSS, or Secret
Intelligence sector, and became adroit in the use of the
wireless and other techniques so that he was sent back
to Salonica, Greece, the main disembarkation point for
German troop movements. There, along with a team
comprised of a Greek naval intelligence officer, daily
messages were sent to OSS Headquarters in Cairo. With
this information, detailed German troop locations were
monitored, including maritime activities in the port of
Salonica. The author recounts in this book one
particular message, which resulted in the bombing of a
train loaded with German troops, resulting in the
destruction of that train and many lives. At the war’s
conclusion, he was decorated by the United States Army
and the Greek government.
Upon
completion of his duties in the US Army, the author went
on to settle in Brooklyn, New York, receiving a
Bachelor’s and Master’s in civil engineering. While in
his thirty-five years as a professional engineer, he
worked on many notable projects which include the
Met-Life Building in New York City, the Apollo Space
Missions, the F-14 Tomcat fighter-jet, and the Space
Shuttle. His crowning achievement is his patent for a
radio telescope, used in the design for the largest of
its kind at the NAIC Arecibo Observatory, in Arecibo,
Puerto Rico.
He
lives with his wife of fifty-five years, Rita, in
Freeport, Long Island. They have four children, and
seven grandchildren.