She befriended a female brothel owner and received information that French prostitutes gathered from German troops. She initially stayed at a convent and persuaded nuns to help her. Hall operated in the eastern French city of Lyon. None of the Germans early in the war necessarily thought that a woman was capable of being a spy." "She was able to play on the chauvinism of the Gestapo at the time. "Virginia Hall, to a certain extent, was invisible," said Gralley. Sonia Purnell, author of 'A Woman of No Importance'īut Hall was a natural spy, keeping one step ahead of the German secret police, the Gestapo. The Germans came to realize that they were after a limping lady. A chance meeting with a spy put her in contact with British intelligence. ![]() France was soon overrun, forcing her to flee to Britain. When World War II erupted and Nazi Germany invaded France, Hall volunteered to drive an ambulance for the French. 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. "She had been given a second chance at life and wasn't going to waste it. ![]() 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. Recovery was long and painful, as she learned to use a clunky wooden leg. Gangrene set in, and her left leg was amputated below the knee. But while hunting birds, she accidentally shot herself in the foot. She applied several times," Purnell said, noting that women accounted for only six of the 1,500 U.S. She got pushed back by the State Department. She decided to become a diplomat, said Purnell. Then she went to study in Paris and fell in love with France. Hall briefly attended Radcliffe and Barnard colleges. The others are Hall of Mirrors, a novel by Craig Gralley, and The Lady Is A Spy, a young adult book by Don Mitchell. Sonia Purnell's book about Virginia Hall is one of three that have been published this year. She once went to school wearing a bracelet made of live snakes. She called herself "capricious and cantankerous." She liked to hunt. Hall was born to a wealthy Baltimore family in 1906, and she was raised to marry into her own privileged circle. ![]() "She was constantly just being dismissed as someone not very important or of no importance." "Through a lot of her life, the early life, she was constantly rejected and belittled," said Purnell. Two movies are in the works.īritish author Sonia Purnell wrote one of the books, A Woman of No Importance, and she explains the irony in the biography's title. 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."īut now - more than 70 years after her wartime exploits in France, and almost 40 years after her death - Virginia Hall is having a moment. ![]() "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. Her story is on display at the CIA Museum inside the spy agency headquarters in Langley, Va. Virginia Hall is one of the most important American spies most people have never heard of. Her story was long hidden, but is now being told in full. Despite a hunting accident that cost her left leg, she became one of the most successful spies in World War II, first for the British and then for the Americans. She was raised to marry into her privileged class, but wanted a life of adventure. Virginia Hall was born into a wealthy Baltimore family in 1906.
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