3. TIL that the Bond character Pussy Galore was based on real life spy, Romanian bo...

TIL that the Bond character Pussy Galore was based on real life spy, Romanian born Pussy Deakin. Her husband was one of the last British heroes of WWII, and was knighted in 1975. She would have been called Lady 'Pussy' Deakin.

Unfortunately I cannot find any reliable info about her. Maybe someone here can?

The top source on google for her, is this article from dailymail, who credit 'new release of some highly secret government papers'. Not sure about what is real and what is not, but apparently here the short bio on her:

  • She was the daughter of a distinguished Romanian journalist.

  • For the first year of war, Livia’s homeland was to remain neutral, but by late 1940, a fascist coup saw Romania joining the Axis powers.

  • In March 1941, Livia decided to flee. Like her father, she was an avowed anti-fascist.

  • She found a job in Egypt, working as a secretary for the Squadron Leader at the RAF’s 2nd Photographic Reconnaissance Unit in Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo.

  • In October 1942, she was vetted by a Major E. C. Masterson to join the Special Operations Executive, or SOE. Tasked by Winston Churchill to ‘set Europe ablaze’, SOE was a unit that tried to foment and assist resistance movements in countries that were under the jackboot.

  • in Livia’s secret SOE file, which has only recently been opened at the National Archives in Kew, London, the vetting procedure was carried out under her real name and also that of a Czech identity she had somehow acquired — that of Olga Prohazka. She joined a department called Special Duties B3, part of SOE’s Cairo headquarters.

  • While Deakin was awarded a DSO, Pussy was given an official commendation for her secret work during the war. After the outbreak of peace, the couple moved to Oxford, where Deakin resumed his academic career.

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