During World War II, the Nazis were terrified of a mysterious female spy that they called
“The Limping Lady.”
Hundreds of posters with her face were plastered in every major French city, and yet she managed
to slip by undetected.
This was Virginia Hall: An American spy living in Nazi-occupied France.
She walked with a limp on her prosthetic leg called “Cuthbert”.
Even with her disability, she still managed to orchestra jailbreaks for POW’s, run resistance
newspapers, and get vital information back to the Allies.
Even Klaus Barbie, The Butcher of Lyon, considered her to be one of the most dangerous Allied
spies, and he was on a personal mission to hunt her down.
So, who was Virginia Hall, and how did she become one of the most successful spies in
history?
Early Life in Baltimore Virginia Hall was born on April 6, 1906 in
Baltimore, Maryland.
Her father, Edwin Lee Hall, was an entrepreneur who helped to run banks and movie theaters
in the city.
Her mother, Barbara, was hired to be his secretary, and they fell in love.
Virginia had one brother named John, and their family lived in a mansion in Baltimore.
They would spend summer vacations traveling through Europe, and she grew up with all of
the finest things in life.
Virginia’s mother, Barbara was not born into wealth, so she fully embraced this new
upper-class lifestyle.
She wanted Virginia to marry a well-to-do man in high society.
Barbara made sure that her daughter received the best education at an all-girls academy
called The Roland Park Country School.
However, Virginia was not the dainty young woman that her mother had hoped for.
She always played the male roles in the school plays, because she wanted to perform the sword
fights and become the hero who saved the day.
When she was outside of her school uniform, she dressed in trousers and checkered shirts.
After school, she would go through the woods to hunt rabbits, and even wore live snakes
as bracelets.
Her classmates respected her confidence and self-assurance, so they voted her in as the
editor of the school newspaper, and class president.
Virginia was studying languages at her prep school, and she told everyone that she dreamed
of becoming a diplomat so that she could travel around the world and have amazing adventures.
Her father fully embraced her ambition, and helped pay for language tutoring.
However, her mother continued to push her to act like a dignified young woman in Baltimore
society.
After graduating from High School, Virginia studied at some of the most prestigious women’s
universities in the country.
She attended both Barnard College in New York City, and Radcliffe, which is apart of Harvard
University.
Her mother had been scheming for years to set Virgina up with men who she considered
to be “good enough” to marry her daughter.
She arranged for Virginia to court a young man when she was just 19 years old.
They became engaged rather quickly, because their families wanted to unite their businesses.
Unfortunately, her mother Barbara didn’t seem to realize that just because a man has
a trust fund and an Ivy League education, that doesn’t make him a good person.
Virginia's fiance was cheating on her constantly, and they were not actually in love with one
another.
She knew that if she chose this path that her parents wanted for her, she would never
be happy.
In the end, she chose to follow her dream of becoming that hero who went on great adventures.
Life in Europe Virginia listened to her intuition, and broke
off her engagement so that she could move to France.
She transferred to a University in Paris called Ecole Libre Des Sciences Politiques.
During her time living in Europe as a student, she was able to practice the language with
other native speakers, and became fluent in French, Spanish, Russian, German, and Italian.
However, when she spoke, it was always a dead-giveaway that she was a foreigner, because she could
never shake her American accent.
After spending the end of her college years enjoying the Paris nightlife in the roaring
20’s, she moved to Vienna, Austria.
This is where she fell in love with a Polish army officer named Emil.
They wanted to get married, but her trip to Europe was fully funded by her father.
Out of respect for her parents, Virginia wrote to her father to ask his permission.
Sadly, he forbade her from marrying Emil, because he believed that her life in Europe
was just a phase.
Her parents still wanted her to move back to the United States to carry on the family
legacy in Baltimore.
She obeyed her father's wishes, and broke things off with Emil.
Virginia returned to the United States 1929 just in time to witness the beginning of the
Great Depression.
Her family’s finances were hit so hard, they lost almost everything.
To make matters worse, her father died of a sudden heart attack from all of the stress
of his life crumbling around him.
This left their family even more financially destitute than before.
Now, that snobbery and sense of entitlement that her mother held onto for so long was
gone.
The family was no longer apart of high society, and Virginia was free to pursue her dreams
once again.
She decided that she would leave the United States and apply for job at the American Embassy
in Warsaw, Poland as the Consular Service Clerk making $2,000 a year, which is roughly
$30,000 after inflation.
It’s probably not a coincidence that she chose to move to Poland.
It had not been very long since she broke off her engagement with Emil, and she probably
hoped that she could find him again.
Sadly, that never happened.
Most historians believe that he would have died during World War II, since he had a career
in the Polish military, and the Nazis killed so many people when they occupied Poland.
While working at the embassy in Warsaw, Virginia was given administrative tasks like decoding
messages and filing paperwork.
This was nothing like the adventurous life she imagined.
She took a diplomat’s entrance exam, and scored 100%.
With her language skills, Ivy-League education, and stellar resume, she should have been able
to easily move out of a clerical position.
Every time there was a job opening, she tried to apply, and they would “lose” her application.
Virginia could tell that the odds were stacked against her.
She believed that maybe the problem was isolated to Poland, so she decided to transfer to the
American embassy in Izmir, Turkey.
Once she was living in Turkey, she tried to make friends with her new co-workers.
Despite having so many setbacks, she still hoped that maybe she could become one of the
special few women who were accepted as diplomats.
But the plans for her future career were completely ruined when she was on a hunting trip with
some friends.
Virginia was trying to climb over a wire fence when her gun accidentally went off, and she
shot herself point-blank in the foot.
She fell, and sank into the mud.
Dirt and bacteria poured into the hole in her shattered foot.
Her friends wrapped her foot in a tunicate, and carried her to the car.
She was in the hospital for three weeks, but bacteria had gotten into her open wound, and
it caused an infection that began to spread throughout her entire leg.
Just a few days before Christmas, he leg had to be amputated from the knee down.
At 27 years old, she became permanently disabled for the rest of her life.
The doctors gave her a wooden peg leg, and she named it “Cuthbert.”
After learning to walk with her prosthetic, Virginia was still determined to continue
working towards her goal.
She applied to work at the consulate in Venice, Italy, and passed the oral language assessment
with flying colors.
But once they saw her leg, they rejected her immediately, and forbid her from taking the
diplomat’s exam.
Virginia was fuming, so she wrote a letter to the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull.
He wrote back that “Hall could become a fine career girl at the Consular Service”
as in- he thought she should continue to be a clerical assistant, along with the rest
of the women who worked at the embassies.
The Secretary of State officially banned her from ever applying for higher positions again.
She had absolutely no hope left of ever becoming a diplomat.
Life as an SOE Spy For the next few years, Virginia Hall kept
her head down, and continued to do clerical work, but she was clearly unhappy.
Even after her aspirations had been shot down, she still dreamed of going on those adventures.
After World War II began, Virginia felt compelled to help in any way she could.
So she decided to leave her job and move back to France in 1939.
She was now 33 years old, and completely started her life over from scratch as an ambulance
driver.
Just one year later, in 1940, Nazi Germany occupied France, and Virginia had to escape
through the Pyrenees mountains in Spain and France on a trail known as “Le Chemin de
la Liberté”, or “The Freedom Trail”.
The journey is 72 km or 44-miles, with elevations as high as 6,000 feet.
This typically takes 3 to 4 days for even able-bodied people to complete, and it would
have taken Virgina Hall even longer with her disability.
During the course of the war, over 2,000 experienced mountain guides who lead groups through The
Freedom Trail were captured and executed by the Nazis, and thousands of civilians were
taken prisoner.
Somehow, despite the pain she experienced with her prosthetic leg, Virginia Hall climbed
through the mountain trails undetected.
Once she arrived in England, Virginia Hall went straight to the American Embassy in London
to volunteer her services to the British Special Operations Executive, or the “SOE”.
Now that the nation was at war, the English knew that they could use her special abilities.
They were impressed with her language skills, and agreed to bring her on as one of their
spies.
The SOE trained her in weaponry, security, communications, as well as resistance activity.
They gave her the code name “Heckler”.
Once she received her training, Virginia had to hike back into France on foot through the
Pyrenees mountains once again.
During the journey, she ran into some issues, and contacted the SOE, saying “Cuthbert”
was giving her trouble.
They responded, “If Cuthbert is giving you difficulty, have him eliminated.”
They had no idea she was talking about her leg.
In 1941, she returned to france with false identification, and pretended to be a newspaper
reporter from The New York Post.
She was actually publishing secret intelligence that she had gathered from a spy network that
she created.
More than 2 million people in France were able to get valuable information through these
resistance newspapers.
Whenever the British SOE spies made their way into France, they had to report to this
mysterious “Agent Heckler.”
Every single day was a new adventure for her.
On several occasions, she saved the lives of Allied pilots who survived from their downed
aircrafts.
Any time she recovered a pilot or a prisoner, she brought them to a safe houses where they
could receive medical attention.
As time went on Virginia, began to plan more and more ideas about how they could help the
Allies.
Together with a French doctor named Jean Rousset, they plotted jail breaks to free Prisoners
of War from Nazi camps.
Dr. Rousset worked at a mental asylum, and they had to transport patients on a regular
basis.
So, as long as the POW’s could pretend to be mentally ill in the back of the ambulance,
they were able to bring the men across the checkpoints.
Then, Virginia would help guide them on a multi-day journey into the United Kingdom
on The Freedom Trail.
Of course, Virginia Hall was far from being the only Allied spy who was working in France.
She was just one of the most successful.
During World War II, Great Britain sent 400 SOE agents into France, and 100 of them were
captured and killed.
To the Nazis, she was just a helpless woman who walked with a limp.
However, while her physical disability should have made her less suspicious, it also was
a very specific train that made her stand out from the crowd.
It was rare to see a young woman walking with a limp and a prosthetic leg.
The more Virginia went above and beyond to save people, the more she earned a reputation
for herself.
News began spread that a limping woman named Agent Heckler was helping the Allied troops
in plain site.
Klaus Barbie was the Chief of the Gestapo in Lyon, France, and he heard the news of
Agent Heckler and her elaborate POW jail breaks.
No one knew who “Heckler” truly was, or what country she came from.
The only dead giveaway was her accent.
However, Klaus Barbie must have had a hard time believing an American could be so fluent
in French, so he was once quoted saying, “I would give anything to get my hands on that
limping Canadian bitch.”
Barbie ordered his men to hang over 200 posters of Virginia Hall’s face, and it read: “The
Limping Lady.
The most dangerous of all Allied spies.
We must find and destroy her.”
They put a bounty on her head, offering a reward for anyone who could come forward with
any information about her whereabouts.
Eventually, someone was tempted enough to turn her secret location in to the Gestapo.
In November of 1942, she sent a message back to London that the address of her safe house
had been compromised.
They ordered her to run, but she told them that before she could escape, she must save
two captured SEO agents named Alex and Fabian.
However, just as she was attempting to break them out of jail, a huge influx of Nazi soldiers
showed up.
They had just arrived after defeating territories in North Africa.
These were thousands of fresh eyes who were seeing the wanted posters for the very first
time, and they would be on the lookout for the young woman with the distinctive limp.
Once she saw the new soldiers, it was clear to Virginia that if she did not leave immediately,
she would be captured.
She packed her bags and left town just in the nick of time, because the very next day,
Dr. Jean Rousset was arrested and killed for running his underground escape route in the
asylum.
The Gestapo burst in the Heckler HQ, but she was already gone.
Virginia Hall just barely had a 24-hour head start making her way back on the Freedom Trail.
It was just enough time to save her life.
However, just as Virginia Hall could practically see her freedom on the horizon, the Spanish
police arrested her for illegally crossing the border.
She was brought to jail.
At the very least- she wasn’t in the hands of the Nazis, and could finally get some rest.
Joining the CIA We are not sure just how long Virginia Hall
spent living in a Spanish jail cell, but she had to contact the American embassy in order
for them to finally release her.
Once she was free, Virginia contacted the SOE, and let them know that she was alive
and well.
After spending time in prison, she was even more eager to get back to helping with the
war effort.
She requested to be sent back into France, because she felt that her duty was not over.
They refused, saying that the Gestapo already knew who she was, and they were right.
Illustrations of Virginia's likeness were hung on “Wanted” posters all over Nazi-occupied
Europe.
It would be far too risky.
As far as the SOE was concerned, Agent Heckler had done her duty, and they didn’t expect
anything more from her.
Once she knew that the British would not take her back, she took a break from being a spy,
until 1944.
This is when she learned about the planned Allied invasion of Normandy.
She met up with the American Office of Strategic Services, or the “OSS” for short.
This was the precursor of the CIA.
Since her face was recognizable, they helped her to dress up as an elderly woman.
This was actually the perfect disguise, because it looked totally natural for an older woman
to be limping.
They also taught her morse code, and she learned how to become a radio operator to send messages
back to the Americans as quickly as possible.
After returning to France as an old woman, Virginia made goat’s milk and lived out
a daily existence as a milkmaid.
Yet again, the Nazis thought she was harmless, so Virginia was able to hide in plain site
delivering milk and cheese to the camps as the Germans openly discussed top-secret information
in front of her.
They had no idea that she could speak fluent German, of course.
After identifying their most vital locations, Virginia contacted the Allies over the radio,
and helped to orchestra the bombings of several bridges and major Nazi infrastructures throughout
France before the Allies ever reached the shores of Normandy on D-Day.
Even in the midst of battle, she was on the ground sabotaging as much Nazi gear as she
possibly could.
The Americans celebrated their victory over the Nazis, and no one ever knew that they
needed to thank Virginia Hall for prepping the road to victory beforehand.
After the War, and Legacy When the war was finally over in 1945, Virginia
Hall was recognized for serving her country.
She was the one and only woman to receive The Distinguished Service Cross of the United
States of America.
Even though this was such a prestigious honor, and the world would have been shocked to know
just how much she contributed to the Allied victory, she requested for the award ceremony
to be held in secret.
She did not want the newspapers to show pictures of her face, because she wanted to continue
working as a spy.
The Office of Strategic Services was renamed The Central Intelligence Agency, or the CIA,
and Virgina Hall would go on to become one of their very first female secret agents.
After years of focusing on her career, she finally got married when she was 44 years
old to a fellow spy named Paul Goillot.
The CIA gave Virginia and Paul husband new aliases, and they were sent her to work in
Venice, Italy to monitor the progress of Communism in the country.
For several years, she gathered data on financial and political information and transmitted
it back to the United States.
Then, she joined a division of the CIA called National Committee For Free Europe before
retiring when she turned 60 years old.
Even after she was retired, she knew that the missions she participated in were still
top-secret.
So she never revealed the details of her exploits, and she never gave a single interview.
She lived to be 76 years old, and died in 1982.
Years after her death, a CIA agent named Craig R. Gralley read the documents of Virginia
Hall’s incredible story, and he felt inspired to retrace her steps on The Freedom Trail.
He wanted to experience what it must have been like for her to go through the mountains.
Even as an able-bodied man, he stumbled multiple times, and almost fell to his death.
Gralley wrote, “I’m hiking above 6,000 feet and have stumbled twice on this narrow
and rocky trail deep in the French Pyrenees.
There’s nothing to grab on to if I fall; only thorny brush and an occasional scrub
pine cling to the steep mountain slope.”
Today, she continues to inspire people with her story.
As a spy, Virginia Hall kept most of her life a secret, because she was fighting to keep
people safe from the Nazi regime.
She worked quietly behind the scenes without ever expecting fame or glory.
In the end, she truly did accomplish her dream of going down in history as a true hero.