A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell.
This is the story of Virginia Hall, a privileged woman from Baltimore, who was expected to “marry up” and be a good housewife. Virginia was a tomboy who like to hunt and excelled at sports. She was elected high school class president. She was paired with a suitable young man but really didn’t like him so she dumped him. Her family was reasonably well off, so European travel was part of her life. She attended five colleges, starting at Radcliffe and also going to school in Paris and Vienna.
While in Europe she learned four languages and learned Morse code. She applied for the US diplomatic corps and, despite getting a 100% on the qualifying examination, was rejected at the last minute. She failed the gender test. She was a woman.
Virginia ended up as a secretary in Turkey 1933, just as Germany was starting to stew. During a hunting trip, she accidentally fired her rifle at her leg which had to be amputated. She took well over a year to recover and almost died of infections along the way. She eventually got well enough to return to the United States where surgeons did more work on her leg and installed a primitive wooden prosthetic that was held on by leather straps. She named it Cuthbert.
In late 1934 she went to work at the American consulate in Venice. She returned to the United States in 1937 to try to get into the foreign service once again, but was rejected, this time because she was an amputee.
She went back to Europe as a secretary, this time in Estonia, where she was doing the same menial work she had been doing for seven years. In September of 1939, Hitler invaded Poland and England and France declared war on Germany. Virginia quit her job and went to England to join the war effort. This time she was rejected because she was an American. Undaunted she went to Paris and became an ambulance driver in February of 1940. In June, France surrendered to the Nazis.
Virginia needed to find something else to do; the ambulance gig hadn’t lasted too long. She managed to avoid the Nazis as she traveled to Spain in order to get to Britain to see if she could find something to do. She ran into a man who was very impressed with what she had done in France. As fate would have it, he was involved in Britain’s effort to create an intelligence agency. He gave her the phone number of a gentleman in London who might be able to help her out. That man, Nicholas Boddington, was organizing the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), a new secret service agency. Winston Churchill had ordered its formation, with a mission of putting “Europe ablaze” against Hitler.
Back in London, Virginia tried to get her old secretary’s job back in the state department. She was rejected because over a year had lapsed between her work with state and when she was asking for the job. That made her ineligible to be rehired. She was about to sail back to Baltimore when she remembered the phone number and made the call. Boddington invited her to dinner and was impressed enough to recommend that she be hired into SOE because of her extensive knowledge of France, the main base for developing organized opposition to the Nazis. In April of 1941, Virginia became a spy.
The SOE was unique in that it was willing to play dirty to win. Before WW II, there were gentlemanly limits on intelligence gathering and a hesitancy to take clandestine direct action. Hitler and the Nazi brutality changed that. Now the resistance could do anything necessary to bring down Germany. The SOE would observe and gather information, but also recruit, train, and supervise agents in an active effort to disrupt the Germans. The model was based on the Irish Republican Army (IRA) that had run circles around occupying British troops in Ireland for decades.
Of course, the agency had no idea how to do that. They had only ten phone lines and a handful of agents in France. One problem was that the French were cowed by the Nazis, who were quick to execute anyone who did not fall in line. Recruiting partisans was tough.
There of course was pushback on Virginia because some people in London did not think it was proper to have a woman in the field. Since the SOE was by definition a rogue organization, those objections were quickly dispensed with. Her bosses really were impressed as they sent her off to spy school to learn secret coding, organizing technique, leadership skills, how to use suicide pills, how to shoot, and how to blow things up. She was a natural. In August of 1941 she went back to France.
Virginia’s first assignment was Vichy, France, the headquarters of the German occupation force. Her cover was being a reporter for the New York Post. She actually did transmit some information via her news stories in the Post by using code. Most of her intelligence was sent through back channels.
Virginia, an American, tried to make friends with the US delegation in Vichy but they didn't trust her since she was working with the Brits. This was late 1941, before Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt was hesitant to join the European war, so his diplomatic representatives resisted helping England.
She next was assigned to Lyon 90 miles from the Swiss border which made it easier to smuggle things and people out and in. The city had an influx of 200,000 people who fled other cities and housing was scarce so she ended up living in a convent. She wrote stories for the Post and gathered intelligence about the German occupiers. The Nazis were brutal in their subjugation, routinely executing dozens of people for little reason except to terrify. The brutality finally woke up the French who began to form a resistance which Virginia helped organize.
One problem with setting up a resistance to an occupying force is that while people may be enthusiastic about pushing back against their oppressors, they are totally disorganized and careless about getting caught. Every few months, the Nazis would infiltrate the partisans’ operations and arrest and execute lots of people. Virginia managed to avoid getting caught and over time became the de facto leader of the resistance. Sexism helped her stay free – Nazi leaders couldn’t believe that a woman could succeed at being a spy so they left her alone.
Along the way Virginia hooked up with a local Madame Germaine and her hookers, who became very adroit at getting secret information out of their Nazi customers while sexually romping. On the flip side, Virginia made friends with nuns who became excellent sources of information because everyone, including the Germans, assumed they were harmless.
As time went on, the Nazis clamped down on Vichy France that was led by Marshall Phillippe Petain, a Nazi sycophant. Jews were repressed, there was a shortage of fuel for heat during the cold winter, and food rations were sharply cut. People had strict travel restrictions. Virginia’s cover as a journalist let her travel freely, a good thing for a spy.
The winter of 1941-42 saw increased Nazi repression which led more people to work against the Reich occupiers. Virginia tried to organize folks, but they were amateurs in tradecraft. All too often someone would be careless and a whole cadre of partisans would be busted with many people being sent off to concentration camps. Shortwave radio operators were essential to communicating with London, but the Germans were very good at identifying broadcast sites and shutting down the sites.
SOE London wanted to reorganize its Lyon operation so they sent a man in to be Virginia’s supervisor. Alain (his spy name) was overbearing and incompetent, so Virginia constantly had to end run him to get things done. Foreshadowing future politicians, Alain was very good at lying to London about what he had accomplished and lying about how useless Virginia was. As we know today, lying works pretty well, at least for a while. But Alain tended to mess up. He lived high on the money that was given to him to recruit resistance fighters. He got drunk and told his girlfriends and hookers all sorts of secret stuff. He bragged to a police friend about where the latest supply drop from London would be. It turned out that the man was an agent for the Nazis, and the drop was compromised. Eventually Alain was pulled out as Virginia was given more power.
In early 1942, a high-level resistance network had been infiltrated by the Germans with a dozen top leaders being sent off to a local prison. Virginia was charged with getting them out. She developed an intricate plan to smuggle tools into them so they could break out. Virginia recruited a prison guard to help out. She also convinced a local priest in a wheelchair to smuggle in a shortwave radio which the prisoners used to great effect to plan their escape. It worked. All 12 men broke out and returned to the resistance effort. It was right out of the plot of the classic 1960s WW II movie, The Great Escape.
By mid-1942, the Nazis had noticed Virginia and her work. Because of her prosthetic, she was referred to as the Limping Lady of Lyon as she was put on the most wanted list. She was recalled to London for her safety, but she talked her bosses out of it and stayed.
One person who did significant damage to the Lyon operation was a priest, Abbe Richard Alesch. He sought out Virginia and presented his credentials, including some important information about German operations. He also gave stem-winding anti-Nazi sermons every Sunday. He also was a Nazi agent.
The priest loved the good life, with fine wine and attractive women to keep him occupied. He needed lots of money to live the way he wanted to, and he made a deal with the Nazis. They would give him money and he would infiltrate the resistance and lead them to the Limping Lady. Abbe Alesch sometimes provided good information to Virginia, just enough to have her sort of believe he was for real. She periodically had doubts about his reliability, but he was charming. He also gave critical information to the Germans about a couple of Allied operations that he found out about from partisans. As a result, the Nazis were ready and defeated the Allies in these battles. Finally, Alesch did tell his superiors where to find Virginia. She was in trouble again.
This time Virginia would leave. She was a marked woman so she literally had to sneak out of France to get to Lisbon, Portugal, to get on a plane for London. She took a train 300 miles south to get close to Spain, and September of 1942 she and some companions hired a mountain guide and took off to hike over the Pyrenees Mountains just as winter began.
They had to walk 60 miles to get to Spain. Virginia’s prosthetic, Cuthbert, was not designed for this, and she was miserable for most of the trip. The three feet of snow on the ground didn’t help. They did make it to San Juan, Spain, where they got on a train and were promptly arrested by the Spanish Civil Guard for looking suspicious and disgusting after their trek. Virginia was irritated. She had escaped from the Nazis and the Gestapo only to be detained by the Spanish for a silly reason.
Back in Lyon, the authorities went crazy looking for her. Abbe Alesch blew the whistle on lots of resistance leaders, with dozens of people sent off to concentration camps after being interrogated. Nobody knew where she was. The good priest also took up with the Madame Germaine and robbed her of lots of gold while she wasn’t looking.
Meanwhile back in Spain, Virginia had to get out before the Nazis figured out where she was. She used a prostitute who was being released to pass a note to the American embassy. It worked. Diplomats – and a lot of cash passed to the right people – soon got her released. She got to Lisbon and was soon on the plane to London. Virginia was the longest-serving SOE agent in history. She needed some rest and recreation. Cuthbert needed to be rebuilt. After a while, Virginia wanted to get back to France.
In early 1943, Germany was losing the war and doubled down on brutality, including drafting every available French male. Despite this increased oppression, the resistance was in decent shape. Virginia had created a strong organizational structure, and, as Nazi atrocities increased, so did the number of people wanting to fight back against the Germans.
Virginia landed in Madrid, with the cover as a foreign correspondent for the <em>Chicago Times. </em>Since Spain was friendly with Germany, she spent a few months gathering information but soon became bored. She wanted to go back to France but she was a very wanted spy there. In late 1943, she returned to London to sharpen her skills and try to figure out how to get back to France.
The British spy shop SOE was not going to risk sending Virginia to France, but FDR’s new American intelligence operation, The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was looking for a few good men or women. General “Wild Bill” Donovan, a swashbuckler, was trying to find seasoned agents to help make the upcoming invasion of France a success. Wild Bill asked SOE about Virginia, and they gave her a glowing recommendation. She was back in the spy business, just in time for D-Day.
In late March, 1944, Virginia and a male colleague (spy name Aramis, an older guy) were dropped off in northern France and made their way to Paris. They were to go to Le Creuse in the center of the county to work with partisans to harass the Germans, disrupt communications, and blow things up to help make the invasion a success. Virginia had disguised herself as an old lady (she was 38), which was good cover for her limp. The task was to arm and train the active resistance to take up arms against the Germans. The spies took up residence on a farm, which was good cover for Virginia since she had worked summers on her family farm in Maryland. She brought cheese to tow and sold it to German soldiers and got a lot of good information that she passed on to the Allies.
Soon the Germans infiltrated the local partisan network and it was time for Virginia to go back to Paris. Their next stop was again in central France, Nievre, where she would train the resistance fighters.
Aramis was still with her. He resented working with a woman, which might have been more tolerable had he been any good at being a resistance organizer. He was useless so Virginia complained to Wild Bill and Aramis was reassigned.
Virginia trained the troops and taught them how to sabotage trains and cars, how to cut communications line so they would stay cut, and how to blow things up. Blowing things up was clearly fun. She had to switch residences periodically because Nievre was a rural, conservative region with a lot of pro-German citizens. She managed to avoid capture although the Nazis came close to arresting her several times.
In the spring of 1944, Virginia and her troops knew the invasion was near. They listened to the BBC French broadcast every night, waiting for the coded message to be sent that announced the invasion. In early June, they heard it. Over the next few days, over 300 messages went back and forth between the Allies and the partisans, setting out exactly what had to be done and when.
Virginia was finally in charge of a mini-army. They disrupted phone and telegraph lines, blew up fuel depots and bridges, and harassed German troops without getting into formal battles they couldn’t win. All over France, the resistance came alive and slowed down the German army which was desperately trying to go north towards Normandy to repel the invaders.
Perhaps the highlight of Virginia’s career was work she did on the direct orders of General George Patton: blowing up a major bridge across the Loire; wrecking 16 railway lines; derailing 8 trains; cutting all telephone lines in the area; and killing 80 Germans while suffering only 12 casualties. She had a core of 800 fighters which were soon joined by many others to reach a size of 12,000 trained troops. Not bad for the lady from Baltimore.
Along with thousands of additional troops came their leaders, one of whom, Fayol, was old-school. He thought it was absurd to have a woman in charge of men, even the woman who was the most successful resistance fighter in the history of France.
Virginia (known as Diane in her spy name) had to lose her old-lady disguise when she was commanding the troops and soon the Germans figured out who she was. Her flaming red hair probably gave her away. Virginia was still the most wanted partisan in France. She had to keep moving around. At one point she was trapped in a hotel in a village with German soldiers all around. She escaped in an ambulance with her body all wrapped up like a mummy.
Fayol was still a jerk. He figured out that she wasn’t French (her accent was all American) and used that to chip away at her authority. It didn’t work. Allied leaders supported her, and one told Fayol that she was a Lt. Colonel in the US Army. She of course wasn’t anything in the US Army, but it worked and Fayol backed off a bit.
He did challenge her to get supplies delivered since he was having no luck contacting the Americans. She worked it out, and a few days later several big planes roared over, dropped tons of material, dipped their wings in a salute, and flew off. Even Fayol was impressed but he still was a pain.
They kept on harassing the Germans and blowing up bridges. They also regularly engaged in combat with the Germans and usually won. In mid-August, the last German general in the area surrendered to the partisans. On August 24, 1944, Paris was liberated. Later, General Eisenhower said that the French resistance shortened the war by many months.
Much of France was still occupied by Germany so Virginia continued to lead partisans as they went against the Nazis. As time went on, her partisans became more integrated into the Allied forces and she had to wait for orders from on high, which she resented but could probably understand. Finally, the regular US Army troops joined the partisans and took over the battles. She engaged in a few more mop-up operations, but Virginia was done fighting.
She could take a break. She and one of her officers, Paul Goillot, had become an item along the way, and they spent time together in the spring of 1945 as the war in Europe was winding down. They returned to Lyon which had been destroyed in the final days of the war. All of the beautiful, ancient bridges over the Rhone River had been destroyed. She looked up old friends and heard about those who didn’t survive. Many of the ones who did come back from concentration camps were in terrible shape; many had been mentally broken, likely from PTSD.
Her exploits were beginning to be recognized. The French awarded her the Croix de Guerre with Palm, a very high honor. Wild Bill Donovan put her in for the Distinguished Service Cross which was approved. President Truman wanted to give her the award at a White House ceremony but she demurred. She didn’t want the publicity since she wanted to go back into the field and continue her paramilitary work.
Abbe Alesch, the fallen priest, consumed Virginia’s thoughts. He had provided information to the Nazis that had led them to arrest and, in many cases, kill hundreds of partisans, yet he seemed to have skated. He did turn up, and turn himself into the authorities, confident that he could bluff his way out of any trouble. It didn’t work. Enough people that he had turned in survived to make the case against him for treason, and Virginia kept meticulous notes which also helped seal his fate. He was convicted and executed in 1949.
Virginia returned to the US with Paul in September of 1945 and slowly recovered from the war. Her mother did not approve of Paul because he wasn’t rich so the couple did not get married but did live together. Harry Truman didn’t like Bill Donovan and the OSS so he shut it down. Within a few months, the president realized that there was going to be an ongoing Cold War and we needed intelligence. He created the Central Intelligence Agency. Virginia got a job on the information-gathering side of the CIA, doing intelligence work in Italy, a hotbed of communism. She was soon bored and applied to be a field agent.
This was the time when Joe McCarthy was railing about communists everywhere so, despite her exemplary service, Virginia had to fill out a 14-page application form. In December of 1951 she was hired into the covert operations side of the agency.
She was still desk-bound but she was involved in planning various CIA operations in Europe. It was fun for a while, but the CIA’s Ivy League orientation didn’t comport with the battle-hardened middle-aged woman. Over time evaluations of her performance got more negative, he didn’t get promoted. At some point, the adults in the room spoke up to point out the absurdity of callow inexperienced youth demeaning a legitimate war hero whose desk work in the 1950s and 1960s was as good as her blowing-things-up-work was in the 1940s.
Virginia handled various assignments organizing field work around the world. She longed to be part of hands-on CIA initiatives, but she was getting older and did have some residual medical problems from her time with the resistance. She was reasonably happy with her work and retired in 1966 at 60, the mandatory retirement age. She did marry Paul, despite her mothers’ continuing objections, and they retired to a French chateau in Barnesville, Maryland, where they enjoyed gardening, making French cheese, and entertaining her OSS and CIA colleagues. She died at age 76 in 1982.
Virginia left a mark on all the people she had worked with during the war. “In the midst of hardship and fear, she had shared with them a fleeting but glorious state of happiness and the most vivid moment of their lives…. When they talked with awe and affection of her incredible exploits, they smiled and looked up at the wide, open skies with “les etoiles dans les yeux.”
The stars were in her eyes.
Bob’s Take
This was a very interesting book that indeed did read like a novel. Virginia was an extraordinary leader; she literally led the French resistance to victory and managed to elude her enemies all along the way. That she was a handicapped woman who had to face more challenges than most of her peers made her accomplishments that much more amazing. She was recognized by the CIA late in life as a key member of the American intelligence network. After her death, she received even more honors in France and the United States. Along the way, she overcame many barriers.
Sexism. Virginia faced intense sexism during her career. Even after she had proven her worth over and over, most of the men she worked with in France disdained her. Back home, the CIA was not initially supportive of her coming on board because it was an all-male operation.
Traditional expectations. In addition to sexism, she had to contend with traditional role-ism (I just made that up). Her mother and upper-class society expected women to “marry up” and not have a career.
Cuthbert. Being an amputee during World War II was almost always a deal breaker when it came to getting a job. There were no disability rights acts anywhere, so she had two strikes against her: her gender and her missing leg. Her prosthetic was essentially a wooden club that was strapped onto her leg stump, painful on good days.
Politics. Virginia had no use for politics but she couldn’t ignore what was going on politically. Because she initially worked for the British SOE, Americans didn’t trust her. When she went to working for the OSS late in the war, Charles de Gaulle, who became the leader of post-occupation France, acted like a jerk towards the Americans who had liberated his country. He wanted the glory. Harry Truman didn’t like Wild Bill Donovan, primarily because he was a Republican, so the OSS was shelved.
Perseverance. My big takeaway is that you can’t kill the human spirit. Early in the occupation, French citizens kept their heads down and didn’t buck the Nazis. As the war wore on and the German oppression became worse, the people did rise up and fought back. The resistance got really good as the Nazis got really bad. By mid 1944, the partisan troops could take on and harass and defeat the Nazis.
As the famous song says, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” The French indeed became free.
