Lieutenant Simon Cohen

Quick Facts

• Role: Downed RAF pilot; Jewish spy carrying critical intelligence
• First appearance: Discovered wounded in a hedgerow after being shot down over Germany and hidden in the Irish embassy
• Key relationships: Acts as mentor/older-brother figure to Michael; relies on Michael’s parents, Megan and Davin; briefly involved with Mary, whom he leaves to protect

Who They Are

Lieutenant Simon Cohen arrives like a spark in dry tinder: wounded, hunted, and immediately essential. His hidden presence inside the Irish embassy ignites the central conflict—the urgent quest to decode and transmit the secrets of Projekt 1065—and his moral clarity reframes the mission from mere survival to purpose. Simon’s wit and warmth make him instantly likable, but it’s the steadiness of his principles that define him. His ultimate fate teaches Michael not just the tactics of spycraft but the profound cost of war.

Physically, he’s “tall, broad-shouldered, and pale,” a lanky frame folded into a claustrophobic safe room. The paleness underscores his blood loss and vulnerability, while his “big straight-toothed smile”—flashed even under duress—signals his refusal to surrender his humanity.

Personality & Traits

Simon blends humor with unshakable resolve, using jokes as both camouflage and comfort. He charts a high moral course and then lives up to it, insisting that courage is a habit formed in small acts long before a final sacrifice. He is the kind of mentor who names his own fears and trains others to master theirs, embodying the theme of Courage, Fear, and Confronting Weakness.

• Witty under fire: He greets Michael with a joke about a “three-legged race” even while bleeding in a hedge—humor that builds trust and steadies Michael’s nerves in crisis.
• Brave and resilient: Despite a serious arm wound and sprained ankle, he maintains his composure and keeps working the mission. His last act—engineering his own capture to protect the operation—turns courage into strategy.
• Intelligent and perceptive: He instantly recognizes Projekt 1065’s strategic weight and sees Michael’s potential, teaching “Kim’s Game” to sharpen memory and confronting Michael’s fear of heights methodically.
• Principled mentor: He refuses to reduce the war to “us vs. them,” urging Michael to fight for ideals, not just against enemies. By admitting his own phobia of birds, he models honest self-assessment as the first step toward bravery.
• Self-sacrificing: He breaks off a relationship with Mary to spare her from social ruin, then asks Michael to turn him in—sacrifices of love and life that place the mission above self.

Character Journey

Simon is intentionally steady rather than changing; his role is catalysts, not conversion. From the moment Michael drags him from the hedgerow, Simon directs the boy’s transformation from playacting at deception and espionage to the sober, disciplined mindset required by the real thing. He trains Michael’s senses, hones his memory, and reframes fear as a tool to be worked through, not a wall to bounce off. When Simon orchestrates his own capture, he passes the baton: his teachings equip Michael to carry forward the mission and grow into his coming of age and loss of innocence. Simon’s steadfastness doesn’t evolve; it transfers—into Michael’s choices.

Key Relationships

• Michael O'Shaunessey: Simon becomes Michael’s practical tutor and moral touchstone, cracking jokes to lower the temperature and then raising the stakes with hard truths. He builds the boy’s confidence (Kim’s Game, rooftop drills) and conscience (what they fight for), shaping the emotional core of the novel’s middle act.

• Megan O'Shaunessey (Ma) and Davin O'Shaunessey (Da): With Ma and Da, Simon operates like a silent partner in a high-wire act—trusted, professional, and fully aware that his Jewish identity magnifies the danger for the entire embassy. Their coordinated care, concealment, and information exchange underline the story’s portrayal of a familial spy network operating under suffocating risk.

• Mary: Simon ends the relationship to protect her from stigma and danger, a decision that threads romance into duty without sentimentality. The breakup distills his ethics: love matters, but the mission—and the people it could save—matter more.

Defining Moments

Simon’s key scenes reveal not only what he does, but why he must.

• The rescue in the hedgerow:

  • What happens: Michael finds Simon broken but joking, and smuggles him to safety.
  • Why it matters: Establishes Simon’s humor as a shield, and the immediate stakes escalate when he quietly reveals he is Jewish—raising the peril for everyone involved.

• Rooftop mentoring during the air raid:

  • What happens: Simon coaxes Michael through his acrophobia, pairing practical drills with a confession of his own fear of birds.
  • Why it matters: He reframes courage as action despite fear, converting Michael’s panic into focus—the blueprint for later, higher-stakes choices.

• “Turn me in”:

  • What happens: Simon insists Michael deliver him to the Gestapo to gain credibility and proximity to the assassination team.
  • Why it matters: The plan fuses strategy and self-sacrifice; Simon becomes both asset and decoy, betting his life to protect the operation and accelerate Michael’s infiltration.

• “Suicide by Nazi”:

  • What happens: During capture, Simon cracks one last joke, then bolts—forcing the SS to shoot him rather than interrogate him.
  • Why it matters: He dies on his own terms, sealing the mission’s secrecy and sparing Michael, a final lesson in agency under tyranny.

Symbolism & Significance

Simon personifies the ideals the Allies are trying to preserve: humor, humanity, and conscience amid mechanized cruelty. He is the archetypal mentor whose loss propels the hero forward; by forcing Michael to act without him, he ensures his lessons live on. His death crystallizes the personal sacrifices demanded by victory—and clarifies that the fight’s meaning lies in what is protected, not merely what is destroyed.

Essential Quotes

It’s not who you’re fighting against that matters. It’s what you’re fighting for.

Simon reframes the war’s moral landscape, shifting focus from enemies to ideals. This clarifies the ethical core of his mentorship: he doesn’t just teach tactics; he teaches purpose, anchoring Michael’s actions in values.

This isn’t a game, kiddo. It’s a war. And it’s not enough to say, ‘The Nazis are the bad guys.’ It’s not who you’re fighting against that matters. It’s what you’re fighting for.

By repeating and expanding his mantra, Simon collapses the distance between play and reality. The direct address—“kiddo”—balances warmth with urgency, marking the moment Michael’s training becomes a moral awakening.

I wonder, Michael, did you ever hear the one about the Englishman, the Irishman, and the Scotsman who were all lined up in front of a firing squad?... So knowing what’s to come, the Englishman says, ‘I’d like to be shot first.’

Simon’s gallows humor steadies both himself and Michael while foreshadowing his own end. The joke functions as courage in disguise—an assertion of control and dignity in the face of a script written by others.

You have to turn me in.

This imperative compresses Simon’s ethos into four words: mission over self. It’s both a tactical pivot and a test of Michael’s readiness, transferring responsibility and trust in a single, devastating command.