Virginia Hall Goillot | |
|---|---|
 Virginia Hall receiving the Distinguished Service Cross in 1945 from OSS chief General William Donovan | |
| Born | April 6, 1906 |
| Died | July 8, 1982 (aged 76) |
| Burial place | Pikesville, Maryland, US |
| Alma mater | |
| Spouse | Paul Gaston Goillot |
| Espionage activity | |
| Allegiance |
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| Service branch | |
| Service years | 1940–1966 |
| Operations | Operation Jedburgh |
| Other work | US Department of State (1931–39) |
Virginia Hall Goillot DSC, Croix de Guerre, MBE (April 6, 1906 – July 8, 1982), code named Marie and Diane, was an American who worked with the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in France during World War II. The objective of SOE and OSS was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE and OSS agents in France allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. After World War II, Hall worked for the Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Hall was a pioneering agent for the SOE, arriving in Vichy France on 23 August 1941,[1] the first female agent to take up residence in France. She created the Heckler network in Lyon. Over the next 15 months, she "became an expert at support operations – organizing resistance movements; supplying agents with money, weapons, and supplies; helping downed airmen to escape; offering safe houses and medical assistance to wounded agents and pilots."[2] She fled France in November 1942 to avoid capture by the Germans.
She returned to France as a wireless operator for the OSS in March 1944 as a member of the Saint network. Working in territory still occupied by the German army and mostly without the assistance of other OSS agents, she supplied arms, training, and direction to French resistance groups, called Maquisards, especially in Haute-Loire where the Maquis cleared the department of German soldiers prior to the arrival of the American army in September 1944.
The Germans gave her the nickname Artemis, and the Gestapo reportedly considered her "the most dangerous of all Allied spies."[3] Having lost part of her left leg after a hunting accident, Hall used a prosthesis she named "Cuthbert." She was also known as "The Limping Lady" by the Germans and as "Marie of Lyon" by many of the SOE agents she assisted.
Virginia Hall left no memoir, granted no interviews, and spoke little about her overseas life--even with relatives. She...received our country's Distinguished Service Cross, the only civilian woman in the Second World war to do so. But she refused all but a private ceremony with OSS chief Donovan--even a presentation by President Truman.[4]
Craig R. Gralley
She was a thirty-five-year-old journalist from Baltimore, conspicuous by reddish hair, a strong American accent, an artificial foot, and an imperturbable temper; she took risks often but intelligently.[5]
I would give anything to get my hands on that limping Canadian [sic] bitch.[6]
reportedly Klaus Barbie, Gestapo chief, Lyon.
- ^ Vigurs, Kate (2021). Mission France: The True History of the Women of SOE. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. p. 42. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1mgmd86. ISBN 978-0-300-25884-4. OCLC 1250089467. S2CID 243273078.
- ^ Gralley 2017, pp. 2–3.
- ^ Meyer, Roger (October 2008). "World War II's Most Dangerous Spy". The American Legion Monthly. American Legion: 54. ISSN 2766-5054. OCLC 1781656.
- ^ Gralley 2017, pp. 5.
- ^ Foot 1966, p. 170.
- ^ Gralley 2017, p. 3.