Virginia Hall: The Most Badass Spy Of World War II
On September 23, 1945, Baltimore-born Virginia Hall was awarded the military's second-highest honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, in a ceremony that was special for two reasons: the first is that she was the only civilian woman to receive one for her service in World War II, and the second is that it was kept completely private. President Harry Truman wanted to acknowledge her publicly, but Hall said no — partly because she was a spy and wanted to get back to spying as quickly as possible without blowing her cover, but also because she neither needed nor wanted the praise. In fact, when she received the medal, she simply stated, “Not bad for a girl from Baltimore.”
Definitely not bad, considering she was so damn good at espionage that she’d occupied the top spot on the Gestapo's Most Wanted and had been targeted by the Butcher of Lyon himself, Klaus Barbie.
Hall's story starts off pretty ordinary, and that alone was something that she hated. She wasn't content with being born to a well-off family and attending nice schools, so after studying in Europe for a bit and loving the hell out of France, she figured she'd become an ambassador and do some politicking. Of course, this was the 1930s, so while she was able to land a few clerical jobs at some embassies, women made up only one half of one percent of all diplomats at the time, and Hall wasn’t destined to be one of them.
CIA
Because she was destined for something way more badass.
And not only because she was a woman — she was also an amputee. In 1933, she’d accidentally shot herself in the foot while out hunting, resulting in both a below-the-knee amputation and a wooden prosthetic she named “Cuthbert.” Unfortunately, her leg-naming skills weren't enough to land her the job of ambassador, and after being rejected several times, she decided to go drive an ambulance for the French, when the Nazis invaded in 1940.
It was there that a chance encounter resulted in her working as a spy for the United Kingdom's Special Operations Executive. She’d pose as a reporter for the New York Post, but actually report to the SOE, while disrupting supply lines, carrying out a prison break, helping downed pilots to safety, organizing the delivery of weapons and supplies to other agents in the field, and just generally being a pain in the ass to the Nazis.
Unfortunately, being a super-effective spy in a world of spies means that, eventually, you get noticed. The Gestapo didn't know exactly who she was, but they figured out it was definitely a woman who was pissing in their corn flakes, one who limped. Fortunately, Hall was pretty good at knowing when danger was closing in, and she always eluded capture — sometimes narrowly, and one time by hiking some 35 miles through the snow-covered Pyrenees mountains on her prosthetic leg.
Pixabay
Something most of us wouldn’t even attempt with a guide, modern equipment, and both legs.
Yet even after the Nazis knew of her shenanigans, and the SOE refused to send her back, she contacted the Office of Strategic Services in the U.S. and returned to occupied France, which she pulled off by being disguised as an old woman. She had learned how to draw wrinkles on her face with makeup, shifted her limp to more of a “shuffle,” and she also had her teeth filed down to complete the guise of an elderly milkmaid. While there, she worked as a wireless operator who coordinated airdrops and helped train Resistance fighters.
After the war, she quietly (and begrudgingly) took a desk job at the Central Intelligence Agency, married an agent she’d met on assignment during the war, and then never talked about any of it ever again. Oh yeah — she was also made an honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire, but she kept that quiet, too. Surely, part of her reticence had to do with her work — she was once quoted as saying, “Many of my friends were killed for talking too much.” But she also seemed like the type of person who didn't enjoy fanfare because it distracted from the important work to be done.
Regardless, Hall's story is finally being told. Her unwillingness to discuss her wartime efforts have made it difficult, but people are putting the pieces together. There have been books and a movie about her, and even the CIA has a section of their museum dedicated to her … which you can't visit, because it's not open to the public. But I suppose that, just maybe, that's a fitting place to honor the legacy of the most dangerous spy in all of World War II — her story's out there, but you have to have the clearance to access it.
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