Mieczysław Zygfryd Słowikowski

Mieczysław Zygfryd Słowikowski (Jazgarzew, near Warsaw, 1896–1989, London), also known as "Rygor-Słowikowski," was a Polish Army officer whose intelligence work in North Africa facilitated Allied preparations for the 1942 Operation Torch landings.

In July 1941 Słowikowski left for Algiers, where (using the codename "Rygor" — Polish for "Rigor") he set up "Agency Africa," one of World War II's most successful intelligence organizations.

Never go near the hostile security services; but he made friends with a disaffected senior police officer, who kept him and his family supplied with all the false papers they needed.

In the teeth of every sort of obstacle — both locally, and in the shape of impractical instructions from the Poles in exile in London — he and the sub-agents he organized provided masses of data, military, economic and political, which played a leading part in the planning of operation 'Torch', the Anglo-American invasion of Algeria and Morocco in November 1942.For his invaluable contributions to the Allied North African campaign, Słowikowski was on March 28, 1944, decorated with Britain's Order of the British Empire and received from General Jacob Devers, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in North Africa, the American Legion of Merit.

In September 1944 Słowikowski transferred to Great Britain, where he was posted to Scotland as chief of staff of the Polish Infantry Training Centre at Crieff.