Virginia Hall, Brave Md-Born WWII Spy: 'Limping Lady' Chased By Nazi Gestapo, Klaus Barbie In France
Last edited Sat Dec 12, 2020, 01:59 PM - Edit history (1)
'A Woman Of No Importance' Finally Gets Her Due. NPR, *April 18, 2019.
- Virginia Hall, born into a wealthy Baltimore family in 1906 she was raised to marry into her privileged class, but wanted a life of adventure. Despite a hunting accident that cost her left leg, Hall became one of the most successful spies in World War II, first for the British and then for the Americans. Her story was long hidden, but is now being told in full.-
Virginia Hall is one of the most important American spies most people have never heard of. Her story is on display at the CIA Museum inside the spy agency headquarters in Langley, Va. — but this is off-limits to the public. "She was the most highly decorated female civilian during World War II," said Janelle Neises, the museum's deputy director, who's providing a tour. So why haven't more people heard about Hall? A quote from Hall on the agency display offers an explanation: "Many of my friends were killed for talking too much." But now — more than 70 years after her wartime exploits in France, and almost 40 years after her death — Virginia Hall is having a moment. Three books have just come out. Two movies are in the works.
- Sonia Purnell's book about Virginia Hall is one of 3 bppks about Hall that have been published this year. The others are Hall of Mirrors, a novel by Craig Gralley, and The Lady Is A Spy, a young adult book by Don Mitchell.-
British author Sonia Purnell wrote one of the books, A Woman of No Importance, and she explains the irony in the biography's title. "Through a lot of her life, the early life, she was constantly rejected and belittled," said Purnell. "She was constantly just being dismissed as someone not very important or of no importance." Hall was born to a wealthy Baltimore family in 1906, and she was raised to marry into her own privileged circle. But she wanted adventure. She called herself "capricious and cantankerous." She liked to hunt. She once went to school wearing a bracelet made of live snakes. College in France: Hall briefly attended Radcliffe and Barnard colleges.
Then she went to study in Paris and fell in love with France. She decided to become a diplomat, said Purnell.
"She wanted to be an ambassador. She got pushed back by the State Department. She applied several times," Purnell said, noting that women accounted for only six of the 1,500 U.S. diplomats at the time. Hall did land a clerical job at a U.S. consulate in Turkey. But while hunting birds, she accidentally shot herself in the foot. Gangrene set in, and her left leg was amputated below the knee. Recovery was long and painful, as she learned to use a clunky wooden leg. Yet it was also a turning point, said Craig Gralley, a retired CIA officer who has written his own book about Hall — a novel, Hall of Mirrors.
"She had been given a second chance at life and wasn't going to waste it. And her injury, in fact, might have kind of bolstered her or reawakened her resilience so that she was in fact able to do great things," he said.
- CIA Museum display of Virginia Hall's wartime spy work with mannequin of her at agency headquarters, Langley, Va.-
When World War II erupted and Nazi Germany invaded France, Hall volunteered to drive an ambulance for the French. France was soon overrun, forcing her to flee to Britain. A chance meeting with a spy put her in contact with British intelligence. After limited training, this one-legged American woman was among the first British spies sent into Nazi-occupied France in 1941. She posed as a reporter for the New York Post. Chased by the Gestapo: There were failures, especially in the early days, when members of her network were arrested and killed. The Germans came to realize that they were after a limping lady. But Hall was a natural spy, keeping one step ahead of the German secret police, the Gestapo.
"Virginia Hall, to a certain extent, was invisible," said Gralley. "She was able to play on the chauvinism of the Gestapo at the time. None of the Germans early in the war necessarily thought that a woman was capable of being a spy."
Hall operated in the eastern French city of Lyon. She initially stayed at a convent and persuaded nuns to help her. She befriended a female brothel owner and received information that French prostitutes gathered from German troops.
Hall organized French resistance fighters, providing them with safe houses and intelligence. This didn't go unnoticed, said Purnell...
More, https://www.npr.org/2019/04/18/711356336/a-woman-of-no-importance-finally-gets-her-due
- William Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services, presents Virginia Hall with the Distinguished Service Cross in 1945. She was the only civilian woman so honored in World War II. President Harry Truman proposed a public ceremony at the White House, but Hall declined because she wanted to stay undercover. The event with Donovan was private. The only outsider attending was Hall's mother.
- They were unlikely heroes who fought behind enemy lines in every theatre of World War 2. Female spies unearthed secrets, supported the resistance and destroyed the morale of the enemy. From women OSS agents dropped behind enemy lines, to female radio operators inside the Third Reich, stories of the decisive intelligence-gathering role woman played in the war.
- “Klaus” Barbie (25 Oct. 1913 – 25 Sept. 1991) was an SS and Gestapo functionary during the Nazi era. He was known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for having personally tortured prisoners of the Gestapo—primarily Jews and members of the French Resistance—while stationed in Lyon under the collaborationist Vichy regime. After the war, United States intelligence services employed him for his anti-Marxist efforts and also aided his escape to Bolivia..In 1983 Barbie was extradited to France, where he was convicted of crimes against humanity. He died of cancer in prison on 25 September 1991...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Barbie
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