Theresa is back at it. This story has a little bit of everything you expect from one of her stories. WWII. Female spies. A missing leg.
Join us as she shares the tale of Virginia Hall. This renowned spy has an incredible story, and there is so much to unpack.
This story pairs well with:
Odette Samson and Peter Churchill
Transcript
Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhint History Podcast, the podcast where two compulsive nut jobs are going to city history, eventually come back to World War II. And Kelly Souther, the story we’ve only recently learned. I’m host number one. I’m Teresa and that.
Angie: It’s host number two and I’m Angie and I am, well, I think we are both the World War II problems, but I literally had the conversation with my husband the other day that was like, how long do you think I have to wait before I tell Teresa another World War II story?
Theresa: Well, it’s funny you say that because my story is World War II. Yes, I know. I feel vindicated. So not too long ago, somebody on TikTok was commenting on either an Unhint History post or one of mine and they said something about needing to cover Virginia Hall. And my response was, everybody knows about Virginia Hall. And I think you had kind of like a, I mean, kind of response. So I was like, okay, maybe you don’t know Virginia Hall as intimately as I do. I know the name. Okay.
Well, buckle up Buttercup. My sources. Mainly I did a, I went through the book twice, A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Pernell. Highly recommended.
There’s an article on the accidental Talmudist.org, the one-legged spy, Virginia Hall. Damn it, Teresa. You know. For those of you just tuning in, I have a penchant for doing stories that include one-legged people, syphilis, spies, like the,
Angie: and they all have either a one-legged or syphilis.
Theresa: The story has the, I love that for me. I also have an article from the CIA, Virginia Hall. It’s titled The Courage and Daring of the Limping Lady. And then the American Embassy in Estonia had one called Not Bad for a Girl from Baltimore, The Story of Virginia Hall. Okay. I love this.
Okay. So our girl, Virginia Hall, she’s born in Baltimore, Maryland on April 6, 1906. She’s the youngest child of Edwin Lee Hall and Barbara Virginia Hamill. She’s nicknamed Dindi by family and friends.
I never figured out why Dindi, but she’s nicknamed Dindi. Virginia graduated from Roland Park County Day School in Baltimore. And then from 1924 to 1926, she attended Ratcliffe, which is Harvard University’s College for women at the time before it went down. And then she goes on to Barnard, which is Columbia University’s Women for College. She attends graduate school at American University in Washington, DC. She is self-confident and outgoing. She participated in high school drama productions. She is the editor of the college paper and president of her class.
This next line, I cannot wait to read to you. She once wore a bracelet of live snakes to school. Why?
Why not? It’s going to be the tagline with her. And I really tried to figure out how this could happen, because every time I hear this, I’m like, how? And at best, I can imagine that there’s like a tube bracelet or something, and you put the little snake inside, because I can’t imagine braiding live snakes. Or she just kept them wrapped like her crazy. Just poiled around her arm? Yeah. That actually makes more sense. But I would assume, snakey, you’re going to… I like that you put the effort in this tubes. I mean, this has been like multiple years of every time I hear this fact, I’m like, okay, but how?
Angie: Well, I mean, what Alice Roosevelt kept one is a… She had only a vintage, but she kept hers in a bag. Or her purse. Sometimes she would crawl up her arms and stuff. That’s true, but she didn’t wear it to school as a bracelet. So… I mean, her and Virginia Hall would have loved each other. Just wait.
Theresa: Okay. She has voted most original in our class by her prep school year…or in the prep school yearbook. Dischecks. Now she apparently inherited her love from a venture from her father who stowed away on her grandfather’s clippership when he’s nine.
Angie: You know, I would have done the same thing with my dad’s clippership, if I’m being honest.
Theresa: And this just goes to show that the family had money, that they had a family clippership. Now Virginia’s parents take her to Europe for the first time around 1909. So that would be when she was around three. And she goes back as often as she can. She’s not wrong.
Honestly, I cannot falter for this. As a college student, Virginia studies at Ecole de Sciences Politiques, or in Paris. None of those are how they are supposed to be. A Parisian would slap me firmly and rightfully. A college student…when she’s a college student, Virginia studies there and she goes to Vienna. She completes her studies…okay, she completes a brief stint of studies across several universities because she didn’t do her undergrad all in one go. And she continues when she goes into Europe. So she’s going to Strasbourg to Luz. She’s having more fun studying than actually studying. But she’s having okay-ish grades, right?
When she’s in Europe, she’s mastered both French and German, although she can’t ever quite get rid of this American draw that she has. This checks. Okay.
That’s going to be important. Now, we also need to think about how I said her family had a clippership and things like that. Her mom married into wealth. Her mom didn’t have wealth growing up. And her mom wanted Virginia to marry back into wealth because Mrs. Hall had been her dad’s secretary.
Okay. And so then they come together. And the family funds start to dip low because Father Dearest was not the best, with cash. And so they’re hoping that Virginia, being this beautiful young woman, is going to come of age and really buoy the family resources.
Okay. Now, given her privileged background, she could easily have been a socialite or a woman of leisure. But she’s chasing down education, even if she’s partying as she does it. And she’s choosing to go for an exciting career. Love this for her. Love this. Now, on top of mastering French and German, she goes on to become fluent in German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish.
Angie: All the languages you need to speak during World War II.
Theresa: It’s almost as if she has been preparing for this her whole life without knowing. Yeah. Now, she really wants to serve her country and travel the world, so she applies for a job with the U.S. Foreign Service. But she’s rejected because she’s a chick. And at the time, there’s 1,500 staffers, and only six of them are female.
That sounds right. The odds were never in her favor there. So since she’s unable to land this Foreign Service position, she traveled to Warsaw, where she got a job as a clerk at the American Embassy in 1931.
Okay. And she’s in ciphered outgoing telegrams, decoded incoming ones, and then processes visas. She’s transferred to Smyrna, Turkey at age 27. And here’s something very life-altering happens, because she’s on this hunting trip in 1933. And she’s climbing over a fence, and the safety is not on on her gun. The gun gets caught.
It’s a longer gun, I think. I didn’t write that part down. But it gets caught up in her coat as she’s climbing this fence, and she fires birds shot into her foot.
Angie: So she’s Santa Ana’s her own foot off.
Theresa: Yep. And she passes out, and her colleagues manage to get her to a hospital in time to save her life. But it’s by this point that gangrene’s already set in. And in the book, Pernell shares the story of how American doctors rushed to this very rural hospital to try to help treat her. But the American doctor who treated her is forced to amputate her leg just below the knee.
Because my knee is quite a bit. And then after her condition stabilizes, she’s transferred to an American hospital in Istanbul in January of 1934. By February, she travels back to the U.S. to continue treatment. And at this point, like her mom has decided herself, her mom wanted her to stay home and just marry up and call it a day. And now her daughter is mangled.
Angie: Okay. But she’s living her best life.
Theresa: Mom is having some problems. But by February, or when she’s in her own town of Baltimore, she’s fitted with a custom prosthetic. And she starts to have to learn how to walk all over again. And she names her new leg Cuthbert. Love this. So we already see the kind of person that she is.
Angie: Honestly, I would name my fake body part also.
Theresa: You know, at one point for the TMI part of this episode, I ended up having a tumor that we were all very nervous when I was living in Japan. Doctors were watching it.
And when you have this something happen and your family is like, well, how are you feeling? I was like, you know, I’ve named it Bula. Would you not talk about Bula in front of Bula? You can ask Bula how she’s doing. We can talk about Bula and use her name, but we do not need to sidestep this.
Angie: Howard, darling, would you please bring me Lucy? My right arm.
Theresa: But I was just like, I named it Bula because I’m just like, nobody cries when Bula goes away. Okay. You know, that’s not a name you cry over. Okay. Now, once she’s back in Baltimore and she’s doing her treatments and stuff, she applies again for the Foreign Service because Virginia just can’t say no.
Angie: She just can’t give up the treatment. She can’t stop. She can’t stop. She can’t stop. She can’t stop.
Theresa: She can’t stop. And this time she’s rejected, but it’s because she’s disabled.
Angie: Okay. But she has a leg too, technically. One’s in the drawer back there. So, but this is interesting because she’s doing this with some well-connected family friends who are lobbying on her behalf. They lobby all the way to FDR. FDR refuses to alter the rules preventing disabled people from serving in the US. And if you’ll remember, he’s in a damn wheelchair serving in the highest office in the world in the nation. And so he, of all people, you would think would have a bit more understanding and empathy, but he, alas, does not.
Angie: Okay. No, no, go on. I can say this checks. Right? Yeah.
Theresa: Now, by September of 34, she’s ready to get back to work. She writes the US Department of State asking to be reinstated and listed. And she wants, oh, sorry. She asked to be reinstated and she lists Spain, Estonia, and Peru as her top three assignments. Okay. So this is pretty hilarious that she gives them basically an ultimatum. I’m ready to start work and I will accept the following three choices. Like, love that. Honestly, the Cajones on this girl make me make my little heart sing. Now, what I’m not fully sure is when she put Estonia on there, there’s this really small office.
And I don’t know nor does the author understand how that hit her list. But either way, by the late 20s, Estonia already had this reputation for the US Foreign Service as a very good place to work. Like, this is kind of where you want. But there’s no positions for consular clerks and that’s where she wanted to go.
So she ends up getting offered a position in Venice instead. Darn it. Right. Okay. So you say that, but it ends up, Venice may not be the best.
But by December of 1934, she’s back at work. Now, Venice, while you and I think of it from a tourist standpoint, it’s not the best place for her because there’s tons of bridges. Many of these bridges have steps. She’s got a prosthetic leg and she’s a new amputee at that.
Angie: Yeah, okay. Oh, and also we’re like walking into World War II.
Theresa: You know, so there’s that, but nobody knows that right now. So you and I have the blessings of hindsight. Virginia, she ends up deciding that she’s going to create her own accommodations. She gets herself a gondola and gondola driver, gondola captain, gondola editor. Gondolier.
Okay. And so she just uses this boat to transfers the city. Good for her. That’s what I would do. And she, at this point, is developing the snack of recruiting people to do things for her. Mm-hmm. Whether paid or unpaid, unclear.
Now, in Venice, she tries again to join the U.S. Foreign Service, but the odds are against her. Now, remember how I said there were only six out of 1500 that were women? Right. All of those women had to be single. And if they got married, regulations require that they resign. Why? A conflict of interest. You’re not able to afford it.
Angie: You’re telling me all 1500 of those men aren’t married?
Theresa: I’m just saying that that’s what the laws for the chicks are. I’m not saying anything other than that. Okay. So, but this is just kind of painting the picture of how stringent the patriarchy was patriarchy at the time. Now, 1937, she’s asked to complete this exam for a number of years. She’s asked to complete this exam for a third time, and she began to do it. And she ends up getting a rejection letter from the State Department, explaining that she had to be able-bodied. And the letter goes on to explain… Oh, my body is able, honey.
You would… Yeah, you know what? And it’s going to be that line. It’s going to, like, think about that. Like, there’s going to be things where you’re going to see common through lines. We’re going to be like, ooh, you shouldn’t have said that to her.
Of any people. It’s like, you know, it’s like, you’re basically giving up. You’re never joining. You know, like, the leg is gone.
It’s not coming back. So, World War II begins, and she’s refusing to sit on the sidelines. So, she goes to Paris as a civilian. Okay. And in case you’re wondering, this drives her mother that shit crazy.
Angie: I wasn’t wondering. I was pretty solid on that.
Theresa: Yeah, I was. Now, she’s there when the Nazis invaded 1940, and she’s volunteered to drive ambulances for the French Army on the front line. And she’s bravely rescuing these Germans… Or, not bravely rescuing Germans. She’s bravely rescuing wounded while German fighter planes are firing from above.
Yes! Now, she is hiding her disability because she doesn’t want to be counted out again for it. She’s developed this really long stride to camouflage this limp, but it becomes so much more obvious when she gets tired. She’s wearing thick stockings, even in hot Parisian winter or weather, because they’re cushioning this eight-pound prosthetic on her stump.
And when she exerts herself too much, the stump chases, blisters, and bleeds. Yeah. Okay. And pushing down on the gas pedal of the ambulance leads to hip pain.
Okay. So this is what she’s biting her cheeks and white-knuckling through. Now, France surrenders to Germany, Virginia flees to England, and she is at a cocktail party when she’s recruited by a woman named Vera Atkins. Atkins is the British bymaster who inspired the character of Miss Money Penny in the James Bond series.
I love that. Virginia joined the SOE, and this is the news by agency that Churchill created to quote, set Europe ablaze. And because she’s American, she’s got this perfect cover. And then, okay, but I should back up, because she’s got what would start to seem as two strikes against her.
She’s an American, and she’s a woman. And they really hashed out what was good, the pros and cons of that. But then apparently it was like, well, we’re going to let her in. We really don’t think women have the capacity or the mind or the stamina or mental fortitude to handle this, but we’ll see.
Angie: Now. Beggars can’t be choosers, friends.
Theresa: Honestly, and that’s kind of where they’re at. They’re like, you know, basically we’ll take anybody because we’re going to need everybody to win this for, even if they’re not right under the Union Jack. And they finally let her in. They don’t give her a military rank. And that’s partly because they know with the missing like she’d never passed a physical. Right.
Okay. And so they just kind of like push that one under the rug and let her go. Now the military rank, but I don’t know if I necessarily get into it in my notes in her personal in her professional life that tends to become a problem because she’s out in the field with other agents who do have military rank. And so they are perceived as better or whatever. And so it’s a more clear line of promotion where she never has that that pathway.
Right. So she ends up going back to occupied France. She’s got false papers identifying her as a journalist with the New York Post and to maintain her cover. She’s publishing articles before she fully gets set up in the city and that’s to establish her cover. She’s the very first spy in France working for the SOE. Dang.
Okay. And she spends the next 14 months directing French resistance activities. And because she’s the first one there, she doesn’t have a radio operator. And the only way she can communicate through Britain is through the articles that she publishes. Okay.
Okay. Now eventually she ends up becoming good friends with the American consulate. And so they end up smuggling her information in the diplomatic pouches. But before she’s able to do that, it’s literally whatever she can get away with a paper. That’s what she ends up getting to authorities. So they have to do a lot of reading between the lines with her.
Okay. Now she’s keeping track of German troop movements. She’s radioed information to her Allied handlers after she gets the radio set up. And she’s recruited this huge network of French spies for the resistance. She is incredibly good at recruiting. The first group of people she recruits, like really recruits, are a convent of nuns. Because the first thing she’s
Angie: like, I need to place a name. At no point did I think that was going to be your next sentence.
Theresa: I’m good at this game. So she ends up like establishing, going to a convent, hey, I need to stay here for a while. And they’re like, yeah, yeah, sure. She sees that they’re kind of leaning on her side. So she converts them into being resistance. Yes.
Angie: Oh my gosh. Where’s the book from the nuns perspective?
Theresa: I knew that. Oh, wouldn’t that be genius? Oh, okay. Now, she lives with them at her first safe house. And as much as she loves it, she also hates the fact that like, gosh, this is rather restrictive. Now, one of my favorites that she converts into the resistance is the madam of one of the brothels serving German troops.
Angie: Yes. Listen, you always want to brothel madam on your side.
Theresa: Now, you remember when I told the story of Odette Sampson and how she had to spend the night in a brothel? Mm-hmm. Okay. This is where that comes in. Same, madam. The madam had set aside several of the rooms as safe houses for Virginia. And then same woman ensures that her girls receive cards saying they’re free of STIs, even when they’re riddled with them. And so this way, they can still share their bodies with these troops. And now the troops are taking out of commission. Now, when the men fall asleep, these same women search their pockets for information that they pass on to Virginia. The women are also doing things where Virginia, when she’s getting stuff sent from Britain, she’s getting soap, which apparently was super hard to come by. Tea, cigarettes, chocolate, heroin.
The heroin she would give to the brothel, the sex workers would offer their guests just a little bit just to see what happens to get them addicted so that they are taken out.
Angie: Ugh. This is going to be such a weird sentence, but I love women in wartime. We’re so freaking industrious.
Theresa: It is incredible. At one point, they also get itching powder to put in the uniforms of the Germans just to make them uncomfortable. Yeah. Like, there is just so much of just being an absolute menace.
Angie: I not only got an STI from you, but my pants. Yeah, there’s an ants in my pants.
Theresa: Now, when she’s setting up these cells, she is setting up hundreds of really small cells and nobody knows anyone outside of their cell. Right. That makes sense. She goes by various names and disguises, like so many disguises that other operatives who try to come and take over for her, she refuses to hand over her contacts.
Because the guys coming in are literal dudes and they kind of have loose lips and she doesn’t trust them, so she’s flipping them off and walking away. Fair. Now, it was customary for the SOE to only keep agents in the field for six months just to ensure they don’t burn their cover.
That’s reasonable. Virginia spends the next 15 months in Lyon, organizing, funding, supplying and arming the French resistance. She’s rescuing downed airmen. She’s making sure they make it back to safety all the way back to England. She’s overseeing SOE parachute drops and these are designed to supply the resistance fighters. This is where she’s getting the heroin and itching powder, which is a weird combination.
Angie: Honestly, I would love to see those transmissions. Need more heroin and itching powder. Really?
Theresa: I can’t. You know what? We need some black market contacts. Yeah. That would be really weird to know you’re literally selling your dope to the government and you’re doing it for an admirable cause.
Angie: Hey, listen, man, when Patty was marching his men across the desert, he’d give them benes just to keep them up at night. And they stole from the Germans. She had her own supply.
Theresa: Yeah. Yeah. So she’s on quite the level of amphetamines herself. Now, she, as she’s doing all of this, she’s sabotaging the German supply lines as well and she’s engineering so many, so, so many people. And she’s also doing the COW escapees from German and Vichy prisons and camps. Yes.
Like this woman can’t stop, won’t stop. She even served as a liaison for other SOE agents operating in southern France, which leads me to my next transition. Peter Churchill, age 32. He’s a former ice hockey international player. He leaves London for the south of France via a submarine. He heads to Lyon where he goes to meet up with Virginia in a hotel. This is what he’s been directed to do. But he goes.
She’s not there. He goes back to look for, he’s dodging German troops. He’s tired. He’s hungry. He’s gone 26 hours without eating and he’s not gotten the food coupons.
He’s been promised. But he keeps going back to this hotel looking for this errant woman who should damn well be there. He finally gives up, leaves a note at the bar with the proper code words he was trained to use. He returns back to his hotel room and nearly immediately receives a call from her.
Angie: Like all he had to do was go to the bar once.
Theresa: Like literally she was very likely disguised and waiting for him. Yeah. Just to see what he would do. Yeah, yeah. Because this woman would change her visage four or five times in an afternoon. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense.
Now, she invites him to dinner at a fancy restaurant. This is wartime. They open with a dozen oyster mushrooms.
Wow. And she gives him all the food coupons he’s going to need. And during the meal, he flips up and he uses language that could get him in trouble. And without missing a beat, she doesn’t change her tone of voice. She rebukes him firmly. And she corrects him.
Okay. Like her face changes. Even though her tone of voice still sounds just happy so nobody turns to look at her as she says, listen, you little POS. We don’t talk like that here. Do you understand me?
Love her. I mean, it is just like as soon as we got to Peter Churchill, I was like, no way. Now, I should mention for those who are listening at home, Peter Churchill was the cell leader of Odette Sampson. Odette Sampson was the most highly decorated spy of either gender during World War II.
And she was in episode 129, ovaries can’t ride on trains. Highly recommend listening to it. Anyhow, so Churchill would later go on to tell London that despite London’s belief in this dude that I’m not even bringing up, London is like, oh my gosh, this dude is like, the shit. Churchill is like, no, no. It’s Virginia Hall who runs everything. She holds the hearts and minds of the entire resistance. She’s an absolute badass.
You’re an idiot for trying to put him in the hands of anybody else. Good for her. Good for him. Oh, I love the fact that he advocated and sponsored and co-signed on her. Now, at one point in the evening where they’re out at dinner, she tells him we age very quickly out here. And with age comes wisdom and facing fear all the time that she felt a hundred years old and knew she’d never feel the same again. Wow.
Okay. So, I mean, it couldn’t be the fact that she’s not sleeping well and taking a ton of amphetamines all the time. But, you know, she knows herself. She did her job so well that she came to the attention of both the Vichy police and the German Gestapo.
But because Virginia was such this master of evasion and disguise, they could never manage to figure out who Germaine, her codename, was. Nazi authorities had enough information on her to know that they were looking for a French Canadian who is nicknamed La Dame Criboite, which is the lady with the limp. Now, French or sorry, US and British forces invaded North Africa in November of 1942. And then that’s when Vichy France comes to this abrupt end and the German troops took full control over the rest of France. And this is where the infamous Klaus Barbie assumes control over the Gestapo in former Vichy territories. He is also known as the Butcher of Lyon, as he would later become known because he was such a chill and demirred dude.
Angie: I wish you guys at home could see her face while she said that.
Theresa: I mean, if there was so much sarcasm it oozed out my nose. Now, he goes on to launch this nationwide hunt to find Virginia. This is his his Moby Dick.
This is the thing he feels he’s put on this earth to do. He is reputed to have told his staff quote, I would give anything to lay my hands on that Canadian bitch.
Angie: I love so much that they think she’s Canadian, but she’s not Canadian.
Theresa: But of course, you know, these German intelligence, they can’t figure out who she is or where she came from because she’s always changing her appearance. And she’s got more than 20 different aliases.
Get it girl. So she is just water as she just runs right through their fingers. Now, 1942, the Nazis have occupied all of France. They’ve arrested hundreds of resistance fighters and it’s winter. Now, Virginia ends up escaping by train to Purpigeon, Purpigeon in the south of France. And she’s going to try to hike over the Pyrenees Mountain Range to Spain.
Angie: Right. Mountain pass. I was just thinking that’s going to feel so good on her leg. Yep.
Theresa: I should mention that snow levels are chest high in some places. I hate that for her. Yeah.
Angie: Now, that’s snow that you stay at home and you wash from the window. Yeah, that’s when you’re an indoor cat. Mm-hmm.
Theresa: Now, she finds a guide and there’s two other Randos who also went across, but the Randos are broke. And given the time of year and then the pressure from the Nazis, the guide, he substantially increases his price to lead them over. He’s basically asking, I can’t remember what the literal price was, but it is an exorbitant fee. Like this guy’s like, if you want me out, I don’t want to work for another year, so make it worth my time.
Good for him, honestly. And Virginia is just like, well, these two scrubs over here aren’t going to be able to pay it, so she pays everything herself. Get a girl.
Angie: She’s like, look. Or as Chit from TikTok would say, do it, lady.
Theresa: I don’t know who that is, so you’ll have to share a video, but okay. I’d be delighted. Now, she walked 50 miles in two days. And she’s got constant pain in her leg, which is often bleeding. And she hasn’t told anybody else on this trip that she is an amputee because she’s a badass. And she’s afraid that they’re going to kick her out and not let her go if they know. Well, yeah, I mean, that’s
Angie: a fair assumption to make, right, especially from the guide’s perspective. Like, yeah, you’re just a liability. They can’t guarantee your safety at this point.
Theresa: If I were the guide, I wouldn’t be concerned about her safety. I’d be concerned about her getting me caught.
Angie: Oh, yeah, that too. Like, oh, not just, yeah.
Theresa: I mean, I realize, and I just sounded completely like a jerkface, but I’m going to own, hey, if this, if I were him, this would be my concern. Now, before she escapes over the past, she’s signaled to the SOE that she hoped Cuthbert wouldn’t give her too much journey or trouble on the journey. Now, the SOE operative who received the message, he didn’t understand the reference and he replies, if Cuthbert is troublesome, eliminate him.
Angie: If I were her, I would see that message. I would just laugh my butt off. They’re like, well, that’s going to be difficult. Yep. Yep.
Theresa: But I mean, that’s just one of those lines that I absolutely adore. Now, they end up making it over the Pyrenees. They reach all the way to Spain and once they get over the border, Virginia is arrested by Spanish authorities for an illegal border crossing. Oh, like, you just, right at the end. But the U.S. Embassy swoops and it secures a release. Oh, that’s good.
Angie: Now, I’d be so pissed if I just walked for 50 miles over a pass with a bleeding Cuthbert and then you arrest me. You couldn’t have arrested me 25 miles ago?
Theresa: And given me some hot cocoa and a back rub and a couple of Band-Aids?
Angie: Thank you. Some Neosporin maybe? Oh, wouldn’t that be lovely.
Theresa: Some dermaplast to just cut out the pain a little bit, you know. She makes it all the way back to London in time for Christmas dinner and she’s greeted by her SOE colleagues as a hero. I love that. Now, our girl, she doesn’t like to sit on her hands. She is itching to get back out into the field. But now she is clearly and prominently displayed on the top of the Guestopos Miss Wanted list.
And the SOE is like, it’s too dangerous to send you back to Occupy France. Like, I believe the technical term, and this is in the book, for your cover is brûlée.
Angie: You’ve been cooked, ma’am. Yes.
Theresa: So, yeah, she is burned. Now, Virginia’s next assignment, they sent her to Madrid in May of 43. And it’s there she worked as an undercover reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
Okay. And her job is to run a network of safe houses. But Spain, Spain’s kind of far from the front lines and Spain’s not playing in the war and Virginia doesn’t like this. She’s bored. So, she transfers back to London and spent her free time to learn how to become a radio operator. Okay. You know, the most fatality rate of, like, highest fatality rate of any other world.
Angie: The highest fatality rate, yeah.
Theresa: And in July of 43, she’s made an order of the British Empire for her outstanding contributions to the Allied war effort. She, being herself, declined to accept the medal from King George for fear it would blow her cover.
Angie: And King George is meanwhile wondering why Patty hasn’t received his Victoria Cross yet. These agents are insane.
Theresa: They are insane. Now, the SOE, they were refusing to send her back. And so, Virginia set out to find somebody who would. So, March 10, 1944, she joined the U.S. Office of Strategic Services or the OSS. And with grudging approval of the SOE, she, now with the code named Diane, is sent back to France disguised as an old lady. And here is the craziest part of the story. She even had her teeth filed down to better resemble a French peasant. No, thank you. That is some commitment to the bit. Yeah.
Angie: I’m, you know what, my mouth still hurts. Thank you. Uh-huh.
Theresa: Okay. Now, she’s taken to the coast by a little wooden speedboat under the cover of darkness. She and a fellow agent are landed on the shore in a little rubber dinghy. And then after going through Paris, she sets up operations in a village just south of Paris named Maidot, where she monitored and reported on German troop movements. Now, I don’t have this in my notes, but she in her little filed down teeth peasant uniform, dyed her hair gray and would sell cheese immediately next to all of the Germans so that she could listen and do everything. And they didn’t care anything about this little old French.
Angie: Yeah, because she’s just, yeah, being a little old French peasant minding her own business selling cheese. Yeah.
Theresa: And cheese, like they went through so much to actually like make sure the buttons were sewn on in the same way as the other Parisians or French, because I guess you sew on buttons in a very different way than how the Americans were doing it. And there was such close attention paid to every single detail.
Angie: Why wouldn’t you just buy your outfit in France?
Theresa: Because you need to land not naked.
Angie: Okay, that’s fair. I was just thinking like you would think that if that’s, if that’s the case, then the French resistance would be shuttling out this gear for you.
Theresa: You would think. But then also one of the things that came out in the book that I was surprised and delighted to learn is as she’s helping down British pilots, one of the issues that she’s having is the British pilots were taller. Then most Frenchmen and their feet were so much bigger and they had to change shoes because the shoes were a clear giveaway that this is a military man.
Right. So now how do you get somebody to wear shoes that clearly don’t fit because they are way too damn small? Like you can wear shoes that are too big, but you cannot wear shoes that are three sizes too small.
Angie: I mean, you can tiptoe in them, I guess.
Theresa: Yeah, I mean, you’d have anyhow, but so like it was just interesting for all of that now. So she is in France. She is going through monitoring their troop movements. And when I covered Odette Samson, I talked about how the Germans had that sophisticated radio detection equipment in these vans that would drive around and try to find the radio operators.
And the Gestapo, they start getting closer and closer to Virginia and she just moves further and further south and she moves to a town of Kusny. All of these are butchered. My apologies to the French. And it’s there she sets up her operations in May of 1944. And then the there’s an Allied invasion of France that’s drawing near and the OSS agent Diane, which is her, they received new orders to organize the local French resistance forces. And she’s already done this in Leon. So she knew exactly what to do.
So I got this. Yeah, like she knows many of the people still recognize her. She just like takes the rubber palace out of her cheek to make sure she doesn’t look like she’s got the little fat, you know, jowls. They’re like, Oh, hey girl, how you been?
Angie: Oh, bestie, it’s been a minute.
Theresa: Yeah, you’ve been eating that hard bread. Look at those teeth. It’s cool. I got you. I love that. She’s actually like so by the time that the troops land on Normandy on July or June 6, 1944, Virginia and her men, they’re ready. They’ve already sabotaged the supply lines.
They’ve attacked German troops and they’ve caused enough chaos behind enemy lines to hinder the movements to the north of France. So she single-handedly starts. Wiping their pieces off the board of risk, right? Like this is what she’s doing. Now all over France, you’ve got OSS and SOE-led resistance groups that are doing the exact same. Everybody is just coordinating their chaos. Allied troops hit the beaches on August 16, 1944, and that’s when Virginia and her agents switched tactics.
What had been guerrilla warfare intended to harass and disrupt just becomes all-out war. So August 26, Virginia and her resistance troop accepted the surrender of the German Southern command at Les Chambons. And then as the war in France is winding down, Virginia is instructed to coordinate another parachute drop on September 4. One of the men who arrives is part of the drop. He’s a guy, he’s a French-American lieutenant named Paul Goudot.
And he was called, he ended up, Paul ends up calling both Paris and New York home. And it’s almost love at first sight. But Virginia, she still knows that there’s a war to be won.
So she just kind of puts that in her back pocket and she carries on. So they clear out their zone of any resistance. Virginia, Paul and the colleagues who are left in, in Crosney on September 13, they’re looking for more Germans to fight because of course they are.
Angie: I mean, why wouldn’t you be?
Theresa: I mean, by September 25, they made it to Paris, which had been liberated just a month before. And then they began reporting in and the OSS congratulated Virginia and her team on a job well done and pulled them out of the field.
Okay. Now, it looked like the war is going to be over soon because you had the Battle of the Bulge, which was December in 1944, all the way through January. And it made it clear that the final battle for Germany would be long and hard. As a result, Virginia and Paul, they volunteer for another dangerous mission. This one is behind the German lines in Austria. Oh, I mean, she just keeps running into the lion’s mouth. I love her.
Angie: And I love how our stories coordinate in the weirdest way possible.
Theresa: And we didn’t think they were going to do that.
Angie: No, we didn’t. But a joint Allied Task Force just screams, I guess it would. Yeah.
Theresa: I mean, if we keep covering World War II, we’re going to overlap narratives.
Angie: And I love that for me because as I was telling the husband, as soon as I learned something new, I learned something new. Like there’s something else to be like, oh, I didn’t know that was a thing. Oh, I didn’t know. Oh, I need to read another book.
Theresa: Yeah. And I’ve got plenty. April 25th, Virginia’s new OSS team is positioned in Switzerland and they’re waiting for their orders to cross the border. But on May 2nd, the mission was scrapped and six days later Germany to switch six days later, Germany surrendered to the Allies. The war in Europe’s over. Right.
And now Virginia is there. She’s trained three battalions of resistance fighters to wage guerrilla warfare against German occupiers. And I love, love, love that one of her unlikely you tell it. You Lieutenant’s was the brothel madam and the doctor that specialized in venereal disease because it was the doctor who had come by weekly to give girls these fresh cards saying that they’re clean of disease. The doctor was in on it. Of course he was. So much so that in the book, the phrase, the doctor sent me was basically shorthand for I’m part of the resistance.
Angie: I mean that checks. I’m part of the resistance and have syphilis. So tell me where to go. Which I prefer them now. I’m here for it.
Theresa: She taught teachers and farmers how to blow up bridges and she was the mastermind of a successful plot that rescued 12 resistance fighters who’ve been captured by the Germans. We’re talking in one go. Walked into prisons pulled 12 out walked out.
Now guerrilla warfare techniques that Virginia developed are still used by the CIA and other spy agencies today. I believe it. Now here’s we fast forward a little bit because I’m not done. 1945 the war ends. The US Army presented Virginia with the distinguished service cross and recognition of her brave work with the French resistance. It was the only DSC awarded to a civilian woman in World War Two.
Angie: All because somebody previously wouldn’t give her a military rank.
Theresa: Now, okay. President Truman wanted to present this at a public ceremony. Our girl says no, I need to protect my cover. Because you just don’t know. Yeah, she doesn’t accept it from a king. She doesn’t accept it from her president because she is ready to go back. Should things kick off?
Angie: Honestly, I mean, again, how after a life like that do you go back to a normal civilian life?
Theresa: You don’t. And here’s allow me to continue because this will continue to make more and more sense. Every sense the more outladdish as it is, you’re gonna be like, of course. So General Bill Donovan, who earned both the Medal of Honor and the DSC while in command of the famous fighting Irish regiment during the World War One. He’s the one who gives Virginia her DSC in a private ceremony that’s attended only by her mother. Well, at least mom’s there for something.
Angie: Now, she being always modest, her only comment on receiving America’s second highest award for bravery is said to have been not bad for a girl from Baltimore. I love that. She has made an honorary member of the Order of the British Empire and she’s awarded the Croix de Ligaire by France. And by now she’s 40 years old and she’s eager to remain in the intelligence business. So what’s a girl to do? She goes back to the U.S. after the war. She tries to join the U.S. Foreign Service one last time.
Angie: This girl can’t take no for an answer.
Theresa: And President Truman dissolved the OSS, but once again she’s turned down, but this time they give her a new reason. Budgetary cutbacks. Still lame. It is still lame, but at this time they have a new line, which I’m okay with. I mean, I’d rather not be rejected for anything that you assume about me versus like we legit just can’t pay for it right now.
Angie: Yeah, it would not be rejected for having ovaries. Yeah.
Theresa: Yeah. Or a body I can still use but you deem inferior. Yeah.
Angie: No bueno. Thank you.
Theresa: So she ends up joining a recently created central intelligence group, which would eventually evolve into the central intelligence agency.
Angie: I knew it. I just knew it. Uh-huh.
Theresa: Get it behind. And she spent a good part of 1947 and 1948 working in the field in Europe. And it’s after this that she returns. So when she’s in Europe, she’s working for this CIA’s National Committee for Free Europe in New York City where she lived with her long time love, Paul Godot, or Geloid. I can never remember how to say his name, right? They would finally get married in 1950. I should go back.
Now, when Virginia’s mom meets Paul, Paul wants to open a restaurant which doesn’t jive with her mother’s desire for her to marry into money. Right. Okay. That makes sense. You know, she’s like, a restaurant. No, honey, I wanted you to like marry up.
Angie: You know, like a gentleman of leisure who’s got inherited money, darling. Yeah. He doesn’t have a truck on. A Carnegie perhaps. Yeah.
Theresa: But he’s not a Rothschild. Oh, or a Rothschild as you’ve called him.
Angie: I, because there are two last names and I gave you the wrong one. I was just thinking of how mom could have previously introduced him, her to one of them in the Hamptons. Don’t you remember Charlie I introduced you about 25 years ago. He’s still waiting for you to call him back.
Theresa: I’m sure she introduced several. This does not seem like the woman to stand by and I believe wait.
Angie: Yeah, I’m thinking that now.
Theresa: So she and look back to Virginia, she ends up getting married in 1950. They’ve been together forever at this point, right? Virginia still wants to stay out in the field, but the CIA, they put her to work as an analyst in the office of policy coordination in Washington. And she’s there. Okay.
I know it’s it is what it is. She works a variety of jobs. She becomes the first woman to become a member of CIA’s career staff in 1956, but she leaves 10 years later when she reaches the mandatory retirement age of 60.
Angie: Okay, then what do you do just go tend to your roses, I guess she lives on a farm.
Theresa: And like she buys a farm in Maryland and she enjoyed reading birdwatching, gardening, weaving and her pet poodles.
Angie: Was the farm later called Langley?
Theresa: No, no, you would think you would think right now she died July 12 1982 in Rockville, Maryland at the age of 76. Oh, what a badass. I should say that Paul did end up starting his business. The restaurant, the restaurant failed. And Virginia is like, just come, come be a house husband, work on the farm, which really chat mommy, dearest side.
Angie: Well, you know, but they had a great time.
Theresa: But that’s their best life. Yeah. And that’s Virginia Hall. That’s that’s the woman that I was like, Oh, everybody does Virginia Hall. I guess I’ll take her off my list now. I’m just here to make you do that.
Angie: Yeah, I’m going to go take her off my list. Thanks. I also just just recently purchased the woman of no importance. Like you really? Yeah, like probably May or June.
Theresa: But it’s still in your to be read list.
Angie: Yes, because as I told Alessandro, I planned on reading sci-fi all summer and then I learned about Patty maintenance and read World War Two memoirs all summer. You can do that, you know,
Theresa: you can and I think you do need, you know, to mix it up, get that variety. But I’m glad that you had, you know, the one of my main sources and hadn’t read it yet.
Angie: Yeah, I was just literally, I literally saw it yesterday and I was like, Oh, yeah, I need to read that one. That one sounded so interesting. And as soon as you said her name, I was like, Damn it. I love doing that to you. You know, we enjoy, we enjoy stirring the chaos for the other one.
Theresa: I mean, I feel like I’m better at it than you.
Angie: I feel like you’re better at it than me. But then when I actually do it, it just is so long standing. You’ll never forgive me for my actions. Truth. Yeah. Yeah.
Theresa: Well, if you’ve enjoyed this Mary Romp Through History and you’re thinking, Holy crap, if they did that, what are they doing next week? I don’t know. And rate review, subscribe, send this to your favorite person who would be an amazing house husband. And on that note, give I
Theresa: bye.
Unhinged History 
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