Virginia Hall.
Lorna Catling
AN OLD FRENCH woman, lugging a heavy suitcase, shuffled through the busy train station, her husband beside her. The German soldiers standing about in the station didn’t take a second glance at them. They were preoccupied with more important matters. It was March 1944, and they knew that the rumored Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France (D-day) would soon be a reality. Members of the French Resistance, emboldened by the impending invasion, were increasing their acts of sabotage. Trains were being blown up, German soldiers were being shot, phone lines were being cut, all with increasing frequency. Public executions of those suspected of sabotage did nothing to deter the destructive work of the French Resistance.
The Germans were especially concerned with capturing a certain woman whom they called, in French, La Dame Qui Boite—the Limping Lady. There were posters all over France portraying a sketch of the woman, believed to be Canadian, and including the following warning: “The woman who limps is one of the most dangerous Allied agents in France. We must find and destroy her.” The Germans knew that the Limping Lady had been a leader in the French Resistance, but so far she had successfully—and infuri-atingly—eluded their grasp.
They would have been quite shocked to discover that this old French woman, shuffling past them with her heavy suitcase, was the very woman they had been searching for. Her disguise was extremely clever, for she was neither old nor French. She was an American, working for the American espionage organization called the Office of Strategic Services, or the OSS. Her name was Virginia Hall.
Virginia Hall was born in 1906 in Baltimore, Maryland, to a family who could afford to send her to the best schools, where her favorite subjects and activities were sports, drama, and languages. Virginia’s love of languages drew her to Europe to finish her university studies, where she became fluent in both French and German. She found Europe so fascinating that she stayed there after graduation and found work at different American embassies, eventually hoping to land a job in the State Department, a high-level foreign affairs agency of the U.S. government.
While employed at the American embassy in Turkey, Virginia had an accident that was to affect the rest of her life. While on a hunting party with some embassy friends, her gun went off accidentally, shooting her in the left foot. By the time she was able to receive medical help, the wound had become gangrenous, and part of her left leg had to be amputated, just below the knee. She returned to the United States and had a wooden leg made. She practiced with the new leg (which she nicknamed Cuthbert) until she could do almost everything she had done before. She just couldn’t run very well, and she walked with a slight limp.
But Virginia’s accident destroyed all hopes of a career in the State Department (because they wouldn’t hire anyone with a false limb), and she quit embassy work and began to travel through Europe. After Germany invaded Poland Virginia eventually found her way to Paris where during the tense but peaceful period known as the Drôle de Guerre, she enlisted in the French Army as an ambulance driver.
She noticed Jewish refugees frantically streaming into Paris from Germany and Austria and knew that the Nazis must be doing something terrible in those countries. After the Battle of France ended with the French surrender and severe anti-Semitic laws were enacted against French Jews, including some of her close friends, it became clear to Virginia that Hitler must be stopped. But how? And what could she do to help?
Virginia’s path became clear when she was recruited by a British Resistance organization known as the SOE, or the Special Operations Executive. The SOE recruiters were very impressed with Virginia’s intelligence, her desire to fight the Nazis, and her impressive command of French and German. After three weeks of intense training, Virginia arrived in France on Saturday, August 23, 1941, as the first female field agent that the SOE would send into France.
Posing as a journalist, she went to the southern area of France (known as Vichy), which was officially unoccupied by the Nazis. Yet it was still a dangerous place, filled with French collaborators, those eagerly cooperating with the Nazis. Virginia had to be extremely careful when she went to the town of Lyon, the largest city in unoccupied France, to locate, help organize, and fund groups of people who were willing to become involved in the Resistance. She also located safe drop zones, or good places to airdrop new agents, supplies, money, and weapons from London. She helped escaped prisoners of war and downed Allied airmen evade arrest and find their way safely back to England. She successfully planned and executed a daring escape for a group of SOE agents who had been imprisoned in one of France’s worst prisons.
Virginia was disappointed when, after 13 very productive months, the SOE called her back to Great Britain to take a mandatory break. There was so much more work to be done, and many Resistance workers had come to depend on her. But when she heard that Allied forces were getting ready to invade Nazi-occupied North Africa, she understood why she had to leave Lyon. Because of the impending North African invasion, the Gestapo was headed directly for southern France (geographically across the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa) not only to defend France from a possible Allied invasion but also to crack down on Resistance members whom they knew were working there. They were especially eager to find the Limping Lady, whom they knew to be a ringleader in the Lyon Resistance. The Gestapo would be arriving in Lyon by midnight. The last train out of occupied France left at 11:00 P.M., and Virginia was on it.
Part of the trip included a 30-mile trek, which had to be taken on foot, through the frigid Pyrenees Mountains bordering France and Spain. Virginia’s leg stump became sore and blistered during this hike, but she couldn’t complain or stop to rest. The mountain guide had been reluctant to take her along because she was a woman. What would his reaction have been if he knew she had a false leg?
After an eventful trip, which included a brief jail stay for not having correct entrance papers at the Spanish border and a lengthy stopover in Spain, Virginia finally returned to the SOE offices in London. While she had waited in Spain, she had been quietly given a notable award for her work in France, the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or the MBE. Back in England, she was trained as a radio, or wireless, operator. She thought that every agent should be able to convey his or her information directly to London and not have to wait for one of the already-overworked wireless operators.
Virginia also joined a new American espionage organization called the Office of Strategic Services, or the OSS. She decided that this new organization might be able to utilize her experience. It was as an agent of the OSS that she found herself back in France, disguised as an old woman, trudging through a French train station right under the nose of the Gestapo who were searching for her.
Living with a poor French farmer and his elderly mother, Virginia maintained her disguise and posed as an elderly cook who also tended the farmer’s cows. Taking the cows to pasture every day was a perfect ruse for finding fields that could be utilized for agent and supply drops. And as the Allied invasion of France approached, Virginia had a brilliant idea for obtaining needed information on German troop movements. She began to help the farmer’s mother make cheese and then sold it to the Germans. They had no idea that the old French cheese peddler understood German and would transmit their comments regarding German plans directly to London as soon as she returned to the farmer’s cottage.
Painting of Virginia transmitting messages via Morse code with her radio.
Jeff Bass
Once, just after reporting to the OSS office on her radio, Virginia heard a car drive up to the cottage. She thought it was probably an agent coming to see her, but out of practiced caution she hid her radio and went downstairs. When she opened the cottage door, she was shocked to find a group of German soldiers.
The commanding officer asked her why she was there. In her best “old woman” voice, she explained that she worked for the farmer and his mother. Apparently not satisfied with her answer, the officer sent three of his men into the cottage, and upstairs to her room. Virginia could hear them knocking things over. If they found her radio, she would certainly be arrested. Her heart was beating so wildly, she was sure the soldiers could see it. Would they find the radio? Should she run? How far could she get before she was shot? Wild questions passed through her mind, but she remained outside with the soldiers as seconds passed into minutes.
Finally, one of the men came down and handed something to his commanding officer. Virginia couldn’t see what it was. The officer looked at the item, then back at Virginia. He walked up to her. Virginia almost stopped breathing.
The officer then showed her what he was holding. It was a ball of cheese. He had recognized her as the cheese-peddling old woman and told her that he was going to take some for himself and his men. He tossed a few coins in her direction and then left.
Shaken though she was, this near-fatal encounter was not enough to frighten Virginia away from her work, especially not with D-day drawing closer. When it finally arrived, Virginia planned and coordinated sabotage attacks on bridges, railroads, and German convoys, greatly hindering many Germans from reaching the battle in Normandy.
After the war, President Truman wanted to publicly award Virginia in a White House ceremony. But because she didn’t think her work in France merited a special award, and because she wanted to keep working in espionage (and keep her identity as an agent a secret), Virginia declined the president’s request. Instead, on September 27, 1945, in a private OSS office, Virginia Hall was given the Distinguished Service Cross award, making her the only American woman and the first civilian to be awarded this honor during World War II.
After the war, the OSS was disbanded and its operations were eventually taken over by a new agency called the Central Intelligence Agency, or the CIA. Virginia was denied her request for another field job but worked in different capacities for the CIA before her mandatory retirement in 1966 at the age of 60. She died at the age of 82.
LEARN MORE Sisterhood of Spies: The Women of OSS by Elizabeth P. McIntosh (Naval Institute Press, 1998).
The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America’s Greatest Female Spy by Judith L. Pearson (The Lyons Press, 2005).