James Doyle was a most unlikely spy. Orphaned in 1916 at the age of six he went to live with a schoolteacher aunt in Paris.In 1939 he returned to his hometown Waterford in neutral Ireland to avoid the war in Europe.
An enigmatic stranger entered his life in 1941, a meeting that as to have profound effect on him. He was intimidated into joining the German Secret Service( Abwehr) for a top secret mission into occupied France.
The British Secret Service ( S.O.E.) became aware of Doyle's unusual recruitment, they persuaded him to join them as a double agent.
On the successful completion of his mission the Germans transferred Doyle to Prague and Reinhard Heydrich's department where he became involved in the assassination attempt on Heydrich in May 1942.
He escaped Prague following the shooting of Heydrich running the gauntlet through Germany, Switzerland and France. On his return to England he was retrained and dropped back into France in 1944 as a member of a Jedburgh team to assist the resistance in the run-up to Operation Overlord, the liberation of occupied Europe.