Virginia Hall, "The most dangerous of all Allied spies"

there was a spy him the axe is considered to be one of the most dangerous Aled spies of the Second World War who organized a network of thousands in the French Resistance who managed to escape being hunted by the Gestapo many times who was responsible for acts of sabotage against the axis for jailbreaks for critical intelligence gathering in wartime France one step ahead of the enemy the spy managed to escape across the mountains in winter a feat that would have been difficult for anyone but was particularly remarkable for a woman with a wooden leg the exploits of the daring an audacious spy Virginia Hall were almost lost to history but her story deserves to be remembered Virginia was born to a rich Maryland family in Baltimore in 1906 she was raised and educated in order to marry into the wealthy social circle of her peers but Virginia was different she wanted adventure and liked to hunt she called herself capricious and cantankerous her classmates voted the young Virginia the most original in her class they wrote in the yearbook the one thing to expect from dindi their nickname for Virginia is the unexpected she was class president editor-in-chief of the newspaper and captain of the field hockey team and a nod to her future career path Virginia also practiced being someone else and acted in school plays clinging fiercely to her individuality Virginia told her High School graduating class that the one way for women to get ahead is by being educated she fouled her own advice by attending Radcliffe Tim Barnard colleges finishing her studies in Europe where she fell in love with the continent wanting to stay she tried to enter the Foreign Service at a time when only six US diplomats were women she was denied entry to the Foreign Service but found work in the same field as a clerk in the consular office in Poland in 1931 Virginia later worked in many consular offices throughout Europe she had been an active person as a child and young adult but in 1932 she was climbing over a wire fence while bird hunting and accidentally discharged her shotgun in her left leg her leg had to be amputated below her knee because of gangrene and she used a wooden prosthetic for the rest of her life she nicknamed the prosthetic Cuthbert it weighed 7 pounds and was attached by leather belts wrapped around her waist while she dreamed of a diplomatic career Virginia and into obstacles as a woman of her time she applied again to the Foreign Service but this time was rejected because of her leg she couldn't advance any further in the consular service as a woman and resigned in 1939 while Europe teetered on the brink of the Second World War Virginia happened to be in Paris when the war began she volunteered to drive an ambulance and was in France when it fell to the Nazis in the summer of 1940 France was split in two with Vichy France as the nominal government of southern France while Germans occupied northern and western France while escaping back to Great Britain a chance encounter on the train out of France led Virginia to her life of espionage on the train she met an operative working as a British spy who gave her the contact information of some friends in London later she was at a cocktail party ranting about the dangers of Hitler and Nazis when a woman gave her a business card she said if you're really interested in stopping Hitler come and see me Virginia had met Vera Atkins who was a British spy master the British government poured the Special Operations Executive in the summer of 1940 its mission was to conduct espionage sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe and to aid local resistance movements Prime Minister Winston Churchill's command to the SOE was to set Europe ablaze Veera Atkins supervised Virginia and the work of 36 other female agents escaping from growing anti-semitism in Romania Atkins a Jewish woman immigrated to Britain in 1937 she joined the SOE in 1941 as a secretary and then assistant to French section head colonel maurice Buckmaster she recruited and deployed British agents to occupied France and was supposedly the inspiration for Moneypenny in Ian Fleming's James Bond novels Virginia Hall was highly educated she spoke French Italian and German something that was useful to the SOE Atkins was also impressed with her intimate knowledge of the French countryside Atkins took her into the SOE where she received training and in 1941 was deployed to France one of the SOE first agents in the region Virginia's primary mission was to provide SOE with information on Vichy France including political developments economic conditions and who had the will to resist instead she became adept at recruiting a spy network the network codenamed heckler became a logistical hub recruiting agents and cording of their sabotage activities in addition to provided intelligence on troop movements ammunition and fuel depots and industrial production she then spent over a year coordinating resistance activities in Vichy France and occupied France in talut and Lyon part of Virginia's success could be attributed to the chauvinism of the Nazis early in the war because they did not think that a woman could be an effective spy in Lyon Virginia started her networking activities by standing at a convent she befriended a brothel owner and received information from prostitutes who were friendly with the occupying German troops she set up safe houses for those working in her network and developed a specialty in jail bricks helped by prison guards who accepted bribes Virginia assisted noted SOE operative Peter Churchill and several of his missions in occupied France during 1942 he delivered cash ration books and identity documents for forgers in an effort to get resistance members released Churchill later ran a networking can and having narrowly escaped the Gestapo spies enacted by France did not have advanced technology instead they relied on ingenuity delivered the information to their handlers for example the BBC inserted coded messages into its nightly broadcasts Virginia used the cover identity of a reporter for the New York Post she filed news stories with our editor in New York embedded with coded messages which the editor passed on to London her efforts didn't go unnoticed by the Nazis however and they realized the extent of the damage that could be caused by a female spy she racked up quite the resume agents freed from Nazi prisons acts of sabotage against railroads and factories causing the disappearance of Nazi pilots who had parachuted out in short she followed Churchill's command to set Europe ablaze Lakeisha topo investigated in all the trails led to lyon they opened a file on Virginia the French called her Ladakhi ball the lady who limps but the Nazis saw her as the limping lady in their most-wanted list she continually changed her appearance keeping them guessing as to what she looked like and where she might strike next and she was responsible for more jail breaks of sabotage and intelligence regarding troop movements than almost any other spy of the Second World War she was pursued by none other than Klaus Barbie the butcher of Lyon he ordered wanted posters that had a drawing of her with the words the enemy's most dangerous spy we must find and destroy her the drawing was of a sharp featured woman with shoulder-length hair and wide-set eyes details obtained from french double agents the nazis incorrectly believed Virginia was Canadian and Barbie once said I dip anything to lay my hands on that limping Canadian he was convinced that capturing her would further his career in November 1942 Nazi suddenly seized all of France the Vichy regime remained in power but collaborated with the Nazis Virginia knew she needed to get out if she was going to survive she had previously helped Peter Churchill escape to Spain by accompanying him on a train because couples arouse less suspicion for own escape she fled from Leo to Penn Yan then she walked over a 7,500 foot pass in the Pyrenees to Spain Virginia covered 50 miles in two days with a wooden leg sometimes walking through snow she messaged her handlers that she was okay but Cuthbert was giving her trouble not understanding that she was referring to her prosthetic they told her if cut Brooke is giving you difficulty have him eliminated riding in 2017 and the studies of intelligence Journal Craig gallery reported he found the past Virginia used during her during wartime escape at the time the French called it jhemini de la liberté freedom trail linking France to Spain that many refugees used it is now unmarked ins importance lost to time repeating Virginia's journey Gally said it would have been difficult Trek for an experienced hiker an exceptional feat for Virginia a woman with a prosthetic leg after her death defying Trek Spanish authorities arrested Virginia for illegal entry and she was in prison for six weeks she was released after a freed inmates smuggled a letter from her to the US consulate in Barcelona she did some further work for the SOE in Spain returning to London in 1943 the next year she joined the US Office of Strategic Services which was established by the US government in 1942 to collect and analyze information and conduct special operations Virginia wanted to return to action France in 1944 and they were keen to let her she landed him Brittany in a British torpedo boat and eluded the Gestapo by disguising herself as an old peasant woman Virginia got a makeup artist to teach her how to draw wrinkles on her face and had a dentist grind down her teeth to look more like a poor woman than the rich American she was she also died her hair gray she made contact with the French Resistance in maps drop zones found safe houses and helped the Jedburgh team joint allied operation to drop agents into occupied Europe to conduct sabotage after the Allied invasion of Normandy she trained resistance forces to do guerrilla warfare and reported her findings until troops took over her Network before the Normandy invasion she called in air drops and the resistance fighters blew up bridges and sabotage trains in one is s report Virginia's team was credited with D railing freight trains blowing up four bridges killing 150 Nazis capturing 500 more they took back villages well before the Allied troops arrived deep in France she continued to do spy work until the end of the war with the war's end in 1945 she returned to America Virginia received a Distinguished Service Cross from American General William Joseph Donovan in 1945 for her activities she was the only civilian woman to receive such an honor in the Second World War President Truman wanted the war to be public but Virginia did not want a public ceremony saying she was still operational and most anxious to get busy and so Hall's mother was the only outsider present at the private ceremony Virginia was made an honorary member of the Order of the British Empire and received the Croix de Guerre from France the most decorated female civilian of World War two never shared her contributions with the world she said she kept her silence because many of my friends were killed for talking too much she married a fellow OSS agent in 1950 and in 1951 she doin this Central Intelligence Agency would which had been formed from the OSS in 1947 Virginia was an analyst on French pier military affairs and worked side by side with her husband Virginia Hall's story was first related in a 2005 book by Judith Pierson called wolves at the door the two story of America's greatest female spy Miss Pearson details many of Virginia Hall's greatest exploits more recently there were three books published last year now there's talk of making a movie there is a despite to her in the OSS gal the CIA Museum in Langley Virginia Virginia Hall retired in 1966 to a farm in rural Maryland she was a spies spy and never spoke publicly about her activities even men their close family members were unaware of her world war two exploits she passed away in 1982 at the age of 76 it is ironic if good spy craft that she was able to become one of the most dangerous spies of the Second World War because she was a person who looked anything but dangerous but it is more ironic that her extraordinary wartime contributions were almost lost to history because the limping lady never gave up being a spy I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guys short snippets of forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on facebook instagram twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 286,387

Keywords: history, the history guy, history guy, us history, world war ii, wwii, spy, virginia hall

Id: 7PEuedNJ1gc

Length: 12min 26sec (746 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 13 2019