Posted on 12/11/2006 1:00:23 PM PST by kiriath_jearim
She had many codenames - Diane, Camille, Marie, Philomene - but to the Gestapo she was simply the Limping Lady because of her wooden leg.
Gestapo chief Hermann Göring put out Wanted posters offering a reward for the capture of the woman he viewed as the most dangerous spy in war-torn France.
But Virginia Hall ignored the Nazi secret police, and, working for Winston Churchill's SOE, the Special Operations Executive, forerunner of MI6, she slipped back and forth between London and France, wreaking havoc behind enemy lines.
When he set up the SOE, Churchill said he wanted it "to set Europe ablaze." Virginia Hall obliged. And 60 years after her name slipped into spy world legend, and 24 years after she died, the quiet American will be honoured by the British and French for the vital part she played in Hitler's downfall.
In a ceremony at the French Ambassador's home in Washington, British Ambassador Sir David Manning will finally present the Royal Warrant signed by King George VI to Miss Hall's niece, Lorna Catling.
Miss Hall should have received the Warrant in 1943, when she was awarded the OBE. But she was unimpressed by 'gongs' - and too busy fighting the war.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1906, to a wealthy cinema owner, Miss Hall was fluent in French, Italian and German when she went to work for the US foreign service before World War II.
To her anger and frustration, she was invalided out of the service after a hunting accident in Turkey.
Her shotgun slipped from her grasp and as she grabbed it, it fired, blasting away her foot. By the time she got to a hospital, gangrene had set in. To save her life, the surgeon had to amputate her left leg below the knee.
Always able to see the funny side of things, Miss Hall immediately named her wooden leg Cuthbert.
She was in Paris when war broke out in 1939 and joined the ambulance service. When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, she fled to London, and with her language skills, was soon recruited by the SOE.
After training in the clandestine arts of killing, communications and security, she went to Vichy France to set up resistance networks under the cover of being a reporter for the New York Post.
In 1942, she moved to Lyons, organising the underground network that helped downed aircrews and escaped PoWs back to England.
When America entered the war, she faced interment as an enemy alien, and went undercover, running her escape routes from restaurants and bars under the noses of the Nazis.
After the November, 1942, North Africa invasion, German troops flooded into her area and things became too hot even for her. She hiked on her artificial leg across the Pyrenees in the dead of winter to Spain.
During the journey she radioed London saying she was okay but Cuthbert was giving her trouble.
Forgetting this was her artificial leg, and knowing her value to the Allied cause, her commanders radioed back: "If Cuthbert troublesome eliminate him."
Back in London a few months later, the Americans finally woke up to the superb agent they were missing.
They claimed her for the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA, and after more training, sent her back to France.
There, in the central Haute-Loire region, she set up sabotage and guerrilla groups, supplying them with money, arms and rations.
She was always on the move as the Nazis hunted her, operating mostly from the attics of French homes.
In Chambon-sur-Lignon, central France, weeks before D-Day, Miss Hall disguised herself as a an elderly peasant goat-herd.
She wore padding and heavy woollen clothes to hide her bad leg and make her look fat, then wandered around the country roads sending back vital reports to London of German troop movements.
As 1944 drew to a close and the Germans began to retreat from France, Miss Hall set up 'search and destroy' guerilla teams among her resistance fighters, attacking bridges, freight trains and Nazi communications.
They destroyed four bridges, derailed half a dozen freight trains, and disrupted communications by cutting telephone wires. They also killed more than 150 enemy soldiers and took more than 500 prisoners.
She moved on to Innsbruck in Austria to carry on harassing the retreating Nazis just as the Third Reich collapsed.
After the war, Miss Hall married one of the men she'd fought with in France, French-born OSS agent, Paul Goilott, and continued to work for the CIA.
She turned down an an attempt by President Truman to award her the US Army's second-highest award, Distinguished Service Cross because she said the publicity would blow her cover.
Instead she quietly accepted the award from her boss, legendary OSS chief Bill Donovan, in his office.
Attempts by the British government to track her down failed for the same reason.
A British Embassy spokesman in Washington said yesterday: "We tried to find Miss Hall for years. We even placed advertisements in American newspapers asking her to come forward.
"But she was very good at what she did and didn't want to be found. We think she probably blocked her CIA chiefs from telling MI6 where she was.
"Finally we tracked down her niece, her only living relative, and that's why the ceremony is being held now." Mrs Catling said: "My aunt always seemed kind of glamorous and mysterious, but she made light of her war-time experiences.
"One time she told me she and Paul found a deserted chateau with a full wine cellar. She said they had a wonderful evening enjoying that."
Heather Mills, once she's done with the divorce.
This woman was a wrecking crew! Wow!
What an impressive lady.
You're a sick pupppy.
I love it.
You're a sick pupppy.
I love it.
Journalists certainly don't. Do you remember when reporters existed and seemed to do a damn good job or reporting?
This chick makes Jason Bourne look like Pee Wee Herman. Damn!
This is quite possibly the bravest American woman in history.
I like the bit about her bosses telling her to eliminate Cuthbert if he was being a problem. Can you imagine what the MSM would say today about this particular way a solving a potentially deadly problem. Notice how matter of fact they were when the chips were down.
Sounds like she would be a great lady to spend a night with in a Chateau with a full wine cellar - unless your name was Cuthbert!!
Actually, Himmler was Reichsfuehrer SS, Chief of the German Police, Minister of the Interior [after 1943], etc. The Gestapo was led by Gruppenfuhrer Heinrich Mueller, and was part of the SICHERPOLIZEI, and RSHA under the command of Reinhard Heydrich.
Heather Mills.
related article w/ some good links is here - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1751538/posts
"After she eliminated Cuthbert, she called herself Eileen."
Another delightfully sick puppy. I love it!
LOL
Not to be confused with the german spy who had a glass eye. Her name? Kristal, of course.
Really? Is she a good enough actress to pull it off?
I didn't see Japanese listed as one of her fluencies, else she may have gone by "Irene"
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