CIA image via Wikipedia.

Shown here at the key of a clandestine transmitter somewhere in German-occupied France is American spy Virginia Hall.

Born in Baltimore in 1908, she had her sights set on a career in the foreign service, and landed a job as a clerk at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw in 1931. Unfortunately, while hunting in Turkey in 1932, she accidentally shot herself in the left leg, which later had to be amputated. She found herself in Paris at the start of the war and joined a French ambulance corps. After the fall of France, she made her way to London where she volunteered for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE).  Her cover story was as a correspondent for the New York Post, and she spent 15 months in both Vichy and occupied France, helping to coordinate the activities of the French Underground.

Forged identification certificate for “Marcelle Montagne.” Wikipedia image.

In 1942, Hall escaped to Spain and then back to London. In 1944, she joined the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and was returned to France. Since her artificial leg prevented her from parachuting in, she was landed at the Brittany coast by a British boat. Using a forged identification for Marcelle Montagne, she contacted the Resistance in central France and mapped drop zones for supplies and commandos.

She died in Maryland in 1982 at the age of 76.

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