Philippe de Vomécourt had worked with Virginia in Lyon—he knew her as Marie—and later took over the leadership of one of the groups she organized during her second tour of duty in wartime France. He recalled that “as a neutral she had done many things to help us. She had carried messages for us, she had gone where we could not go. She wheedled the police into releasing many prisoners, including escaping POWs and agents …”

But after her first operational tour of France with the SOE, Virginia decided she no longer wanted to be dependent on others to be a W/T operator. As she later said, “I became a radio operator because I had become distrustful of radio operators [who] were often careless. Also to be ‘self contained’!” Virginia was determined, and in early 1944, she was trained to be a radio operator.

French Resistance fighters learning how to use a radio set.

When de Vomécourt met up with her later in the war, he said that Virginia recalled how she returned to France as a member of the OSS in 1944. According to de Vomécourt, Virginia explained to him what she had to do to return to France after she escaped through Spain and returned to England. He recounted their conversation:

“Your accent just isn’t good enough,” she was told—and by any normal standards they were absolutely right. But Virginia Hall was not to be measured by normal standards.

“You can’t go back,” they said.

“Why not?” she wanted to know.

“You’d be a danger—a danger to yourself, and a danger to your friends. You’d certainly be a danger to your radio operator.”

“Well, suppose I learn how to work a radio—would you send me back then, on my own?”

“Oh yes,” she was told, “all you’ve got to do is learn how to operate a radio and you can go back.” And they laughed as they said it. They did not offer to teach her—and I cannot blame them for that.

But Virginia Hall ignored their laughs and paid for lessons in radio work with her own money. In three months she had learned how to receive and transmit messages. She went back to the powers that be at the SOE.

“Now can I go back to France?” she asked. “I know how to work a radio—I don’t need to take anyone with me.” The promise had been given to her casually, thinking it an easy way to discourage her. But “Marie” was hard to discourage.

The OSS-trained communications officers at a facility in Prince William Forest Park, VA, before deploying them to the field.

As March 1944 approached, Virginia was preparing herself to begin her second tour of France. This time, it would be far more dangerous as she was now known to the Nazis as an enemy intelligence agent.

Virginia’s OSS companion for her return to France was an unlikely intelligence officer. He was sixty-one years old, around five feet, nine inches tall with a heavy build. Born in Bordeaux, France, on December 24, 1882, his name was Henry Laurent Laussucq. His code name was Aramis, after one of the three musketeers from Alexandre Dumas’s famous novel, and he was raised and educated in France. He had an engineering degree from the Sorbonne in Paris, as well as a degree from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Henry Laussucq: “Aramis.”

Henry served in the French infantry during World War I, seeing combat against the Germans in St. Michel and the Argonne, receiving three wounds and five citations for bravery. In December 1929 he moved to New York City and became a US citizen. Henry worked as a freelance artist before serving at the New York Journal-American newspaper, where he worked as an art director, producing advertising layouts, illustrations, and promotions for eighty-five dollars per week.

Henry had tried to enlist in the US Army at the outset of World War II, but he was denied because of his age. His oldest son, a French citizen, was a prisoner of war in Germany and another son was serving in the US Army Air Force. Henry wanted to join the fight against the Nazis as well. Applying for the OSS, Henry suggested that because of his training and experience, he might be useful as a mechanical or architectural draftsman, painter, or mapmaker. He was also fluent in French, with a slight knowledge of German, Spanish, and Italian. His interviewer noted that Henry was “in excellent physical form, despite age. Very energetic and good education—willing to undertake any mission.” In August 1943, Henry joined the OSS.

Aramis was informed that his OSS mission was to travel to France and establish three hideouts, or safe houses, large enough to accommodate up to three individuals, and to be used as meeting places for members of the French Resistance. The first safe house was to be located in Paris; the second safe house was to be located approximately 62 miles southeast of Paris; and the third safe house was to be located approximately 124 miles southeast of the French capital. The circuit he was establishing was code-named Saint.

Aramis’s guidance was straightforward. He should establish his headquarters in Paris, or as close to the capital as possible. It was suggested, quite unnecessarily, that he be careful, and that he be in Paris when the liberation of France occurred. All other potential initiatives were left to his discretion, but he was given one admonition by the OSS about protecting operations: “Do not get too thick with the French movements of the Resistance, their ideas on security being quite different from ours.”

Drawing of Virginia Hall by Aramis.

Virginia was going to accompany Aramis into France as his radio operator. She was getting her wish to return to France and continue fighting the Nazis. Virginia and Aramis had two meetings prior to their departure from England. Aramis was concerned, however, that Virginia was ordered to establish herself in the Creuse department in central France, some two hundred miles from Aramis in Paris, and therefore not easily accessible to him.

On March 19, their last day in London, Virginia and Aramis were greeted by Colonel Buckmaster and his assistant. Buckmaster liked to present his agents with a luxury item before they went off to the field. The colonel gave Aramis an alligator skin wallet, which Aramis suspected of having been made in Germany. Preparing to cross the English Channel, the two left London by train to the southern coast of England. They had a restful evening at the Redcliffe Hotel in Paignton, a seaside town on the coast of Tor Bay in Devon. The next day, which was sunny and balmy, American troops could be seen at the nearby seashore conducting military exercises.

On the evening of March 20, Virginia and Aramis were driven to a seaport some twenty to thirty miles away and placed aboard a small patrol vessel where the two changed into civilian clothes. The boat was piloted by Captain Peter Harratt.

They checked all their pockets to make sure there was no “pocket litter” (e.g., British hotel receipts, London subway tickets, non-French currency) that would undermine their new French cover identities. Then, as Aramis would later recall, “We came up on deck as the night was falling and the effect of the shimmering lights of what looked like a million crafts of all kinds was something unforgettable to behold. We had our meal at the officers table and pretty soon were on our way to the great adventure.”