Title: I was trained to be a spy
First published: 2008
Description: “Exciting, first-hand account of a WWII spy” - Kirkus Discoveries

Standing on a beam motionless for what seemed like hours, four German officers play Bridge fifteen feet below the OSS agent...so close, he could see their cards, and their mistakes, since he knew Bridge well … 
 
I Was Trained To Be A Spy follows the story of an American-born boy who grew up in a small village on the Greek island of Crete. During his final year in high school, he witnesses the German invasion of the island as WWII began. At the age of eighteen, he joined a resistance group and supplied crucial information to the SOE, the arm of the English Intelligence Service. This group however is uncovered, resulting in their hasty evacuation by the SOE, to Cairo, Egypt. There, Doundoulakis was asked to join the English Intelligence Service, only to pursue the American OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the fledgling American spy organization. He enlisted in the U.S. Army and was attached to the OSS’s SI or Secret Intelligence sector, where the author was trained for intelligence as well as defensive combat skills. After being oriented into an adept and skilled “spy”, Doundoulakis was sent back to Salonica, Greece along with a Greek naval intelligence officer, and later set up a communications cell with a wireless radio he smuggled in, hidden inside a can of olive oil! 

Filled with historical references, I Was Trained To Be A Spy is a heart-rendering and lively account, told in simple prose, of one young man’s spy training that truly brings to life the daily routines and mentality of a real spy. Driving the reading experience is the constant danger of being caught and his methods of escape, which will keep readers fascinated from one page to another like a script from a movie. Highly recommended for history enthusiasts, military personnel and fans of espionage, I Was Trained To Be A Spy is now available for ordering online at www.Xlibris.com , www.iwastrainedtobeaspy.com , and at your local bookstore.

About the Author
Helias Doundoulakis was born in Canton, Ohio, in 1923, of Greek-immigrant parents.  While still a young boy, his family returned to Crete, Greece and there they lived until German paratroopers invaded Crete in May of 1941.  After his two-year involvement with the Cretan Resistance and the SOE, or the Special Operations Executive of English Intelligence, he and his brother George, a leader in the Cretan Resistance, escaped to Mersa Matruh, Lybia, with the help of an English torpedo boat, to avoid capture by the Gestapo. In Cairo, he enlisted in the American Army and was trained as a spy by the newly created OSS and sent back to Greece on a dangerous undergound mission to Salonica (Thessaloniki), Greece’s second largest city and the hub of Germany’s defensive line for the southeastern Mediterranean.  He was the only American soldier in Salonica for a period of nine months, sending daily messages to OSS headquarters in Cairo on German troop movements. With these cryptic messages, many Axis ships were sunk, trains bombed, and thousand of Germans were killed.  The author was decorated by the United States Army and the Greek government after the war, became a successful civil engineer, and holds the patent for the world’s largest radio telescope.  Helias lives with his wife of fifty-five years, Rita, in Long Island, NY.  They have four children and seven grandchildren.  
 
I Was Trained To Be A Spy * by Helias Doundoulakis
A True Life Story 
Publication Date: October 9, 2008
Trade Paperback; $15.99; 194 pages; 978-1-4257-5379-5 
Cloth Hardback; $22.99; 194 pages; 978-1-4257-5395-5
Subjects: Biography, Greek Personal narratives, Personal narratives, Greek, Secret service, Spies, Underground movements, United States, United States. Office of Strategic Services, World War, 1939-1945
Places: Greece, Thessalonikē, United States
People: Helias Doundoulakis
LC classification: D810.S8 D56 2008