The Backstory

Hall, born in April 1906, studied numerous languages–including French, Italian and German–at institutions such as Radcliffe College of Harvard University, Barnard College of Columbia University and George Washington University before finishing her studies abroad in Europe. In 1931, she began working as a consular service clerk in the U.S. Embassy in Poland, a role she continued at embassies in several other countries including Turkey, Italy and Estonia. In 1933, Hall suffered a leg injury while hunting, which ultimately led to its amputation and her use of a wooden prosthesis for the rest of her life.

Hall’s many attempts to become a diplomat with the US Foreign Service were denied, since women were rarely hired in those roles and the State Department did not then hire individuals with disabilities as diplomats. Undeterred–and determined to serve the Allied interests at the start of World War II–Hall became an ambulance driver for the French army before joining the UK’s newly formed Special Operations Executive (SOE). She was the first female SOE agent to remain in France for an extended period after its fall to Nazi Germany, and was one of approximately 40 female agents serving in France during the war (only 26 of whom would survive).

The Mission

Hall’s initial cover was as a reporter for the New York Post, which she used–along with various disguises and pseudonyms, including “Marie Monin,” “Germaine,” “Diane,” “Camille,” and even “Nicolas”–to interview sources, gather intelligence and draft stories with useful, on-the-ground information for military planning purposes. She recruited and built a network of agents and spies that included Dr. Jean Rousset, a French gynecologist who provided falsified health certificates to women to pass diseases to German soldiers, and Germaine Guérin, the owner of a prominent brothel in Lyon. This allowed Hall to continue gathering information, support Allied operations, and create safehouses and safe transport for British airmen who had been shot down over Europe.

Beyond the day-to-day duties of an intelligence officer, Hall was also trusted to plan and execute significant wartime missions. For example, after French police captured and jailed 12 SOE agents in 1941, she worked with the wife of one of the agents to smuggle in tools and tins of sardines, which the imprisoned agents used to make a key to their prison door and ultimately escape the following year. In response, the Gestapo flooded Vichy, France with hundreds of agents, determined to eradicate “the limping lady” once and for all. Hall was forced to flee, first by train and then by foot, walking over a snowy 7,500-foot pass in the Pyrenees and covering up to 50 miles over two days before arriving in Spain, where she was arrested for illegally crossing the border. The American Embassy eventually secured her release, and she continued her work for the SOE, first in Madrid and then in London.

Not one to rest on her laurels, Hall joined the Special Operations Branch of the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) after the SOE denied her request to return to France. Disguised this time as an old woman with gray hair and a distinct shuffle (presumably to hide her limp), Hall worked south of Paris to identify and coordinate drop zones, establish safe houses and expand her network of contacts in the Resistance. She later abandoned her disguise to help train a series of Resistance groups, known as the Maquis, to harass the Germans in an Allied mission called Operation Dragoon. Hall unfortunately faced pushback from the colonels at the head of the Maquis due to her gender and her rank of second lieutenant, but she eventually earned their grudging respect after securing critical funds and supplies for their mission. Before resigning from the OSS at the end of the war in 1945, Hall made sure to identify those in her network who had helped her and the Allied cause and were deserving of commendations.

In 1947, Hall joined the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where she was reportedly passed over for promotions and repeatedly given desk-bound jobs before, finally, proving to her superiors that she played a critical role in the field. In the 1950s, she led secret paramilitary operations in France to establish resistance groups in case of a Soviet attack in Europe, and engaged in undercover activities aimed at preventing the spread of communism in Europe. 

Hall ultimately retired from the CIA in 1966, at the mandatory retirement age of 60, after blazing the trail for so many women who came after her and saving countless lives in the course of her service. To read more about Virginia Hall’s story, we highly recommend Sonia Purnell’s book A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II, for a fascinating read about a woman of inarguably great importance to the course of history.

 

Photo credit: https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/virginia-hall-the-courage-and-daring-of-the-limping-lady/