" Helias Doundoulakis was born in 1923 in Canton, Ohio, to Greek
immigrant parents, grew up in Archanes, Greece, and returned to
America in 1946 after he served in the United States Army and the
OSS during WWII.
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 branch, 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. At the war's
conclusion, he was decorated by the United States Army and the
Greek government.
His first book, I Was Trained To Be A Spy, chronicles his journey
from small-town boy to spy. This book was so well received, that he
undertook a second book in the same series, followed by a third
book in collaboration with Gabriella Gafni, Trained To Be An OSS
Spy. He was nominated for the prestigious Ellis Island Family
Heritage Award in 1996. As a civil engineer for Grumman Aerospace
Corporation, he worked on the Apollo Space missions, the F-14
fighter jet, and the Space Shuttle. His patent for the largest
radio telescope in the world was used for the construction of the
""Arecibo Antenna"" in Puerto Rico, used in the design for the
largest antenna of its kind at the NAIC Arecibo Observatory. He
lives with his wife, Rita, in New York, and has four children and
eight grandchildren.
"
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