Bloody Mary and Other Fearsome Women From History

The One-Legged Spy

Virginia Hall attended Radcliffe and Barnard colleges, her era’s female counterparts of Harvard and Columbia universities. There, she studied French, German, and Italian. She liked travel and public service, so she tried to combine the two and become a US diplomat. Unfortunately, the State Department’s sole career track for women back then was clerical. So Hall became a clerk at the American consulate in Turkey. There, she accidentally shot herself in the leg while hunting, and the limb was amputated. She got a wooden prosthetic, which she nicknamed “Cuthbert”. Because of her gender, Hall was repeatedly denied promotion to diplomat. So she resigned in 1939. She was in France when the Germans invaded, and volunteered to drive an ambulance for the French Army. When France fell in 1940, she fled to Britain.

There, Hall joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a clandestine organization tasked with espionage and sabotage in occupied Europe. She became one of the first spies infiltrated into France. It was hazardous duty: more than a third of female SOE agents sent to France perished. She established an espionage network named Heckler that gathered valuable information and coordinated with the Resistance. The Gestapo learned that a “Limping Lady” was operating on their turf, and circulated bulletins – along with sketches – to be on the lookout for her. However, Hall used various aliases and disguises, and continued her clandestine work under the Nazis’ noses despite her tell-tale limp. Along the way, she recruited a Lyon brothel owner, and used his establishment as a kind of headquarters. She also had a sixth sense for danger, which allowed her to evade capture on many occasions.

An Overlooked Heroine and the Bloody Gestapo

Klaus Barbie, a bloody minded Gestapo official known as “The Butcher of Lyon” for the thousands whom he ordered tortured and killed, was hot on Virginia Hall’s trail. He plastered wanted posters all over the place that featured a sketch of her face above the words: “The Enemy’s Most Dangerous Spy – We Must Find and Destroy Her!” Hall, who was so good at disguises that she could be four different women with four different identities in a single afternoon, evaded his clutches. Eventually, things got hot enough that she had to flee France. She made a hazardous escape in 1942 that included a 50-mile trek on foot in heavy snow across the Pyrenees Mountains into neutral Spain. The Spanish arrested her for lack of an entrance visa, and she spent six weeks in jail before she was finally freed and returned to Britain.

Soon as she caught her breath, Hall volunteered to return to France. The SOE decided it was too dangerous. By then, however, the US had joined WWII, and its Office of Strategic Services (OSS), America’s version of the SOE, was glad to have her. Back in France, this time as an OSS agent, Hall called in airdrops for the Resistance, and coordinated their activities with the Allies. Her network eventually numbered 1500 members, including a French-American soldier, Paul Goillot, whom she eventually married. Hall’s extraordinary heroism earned her a Distinguished Service Cross. She was the only woman to receive such an award – America’s second highest distinction – in WWII. After the war, she spent fifteen years in the CIA. Despite her vast hands-on experience, she faced discrimination as a woman, and was restricted to desk duty. She eventually resigned in 1966, and died in relative obscurity in 1982.

_________________
Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Clements, Barbara Evans – Bolshevik Women (1997)

Collector, The – The 5 Cruelest Women in History to Hold Power

Devries, Kelly – Joan of Arc: A Military Leader (2003)

Encyclopedia Britannica – Lakshmi Bai

Encyclopedia Britannica – Matilda, Daughter of Henry I

Futurist Dolmen – Rozalia Zemlyachka: An Incomplete Biography

Gonick, Larry – The Cartoon History of the Universe, Volume III: From the Rise of Arabia to the Renaissance (2002)

Hanley, Catherine – Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior (2019)

Herodotus – The Histories, Books 7 and 8

History Collection – One of History’s Greatest Minds, Hypatia, Was Brutally Disposed of for Being a Woman With too Much Power

Journal of Medieval History, Volume III (2005) – Sichelgaita of Salerno: Amazon or Trophy Wife?

Kiernan, Ben – Viet Nam: A History From Earliest Times to the Present (2019)

Lebra, Joyce C. – Women Against the Raj: The Rani of Jhansi Regiment (2008)

Legends of America – Belle Starr, the Bandit Queen

Love British History – 9 Times the Empress Matilda Was a Total Badass

National Archives – Virginia Hall of the OSS, May 12, 1945

National Public Radio – ‘A Woman of No Importance’ Finally Gets Her Due

Owlcation – 10 Famous Female Outlaws of the Wild West

Porter, Linda – Mary Tudor: The First Queen (2007)

Richey, Stephen Wesley – Joan of Arc: The Warrior Saint (2003)

Salisbury, Joyce E. – Encyclopedia of Women in the Ancient World (2001)

Shirley, Glenn – Belle Starr and Her Times: The Literature, the Facts, and the Legends (1982)

Smithsonian Magazine, April 8^th, 2019 – How a Spy Known as ‘The Limping Lady’ Helped the Allies Win WWII