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Virginia Hall was an American spy with the British Special Operations during World War II. She also served with the CIA and the American Office of Strategic Services.
She was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1906. In school, she studied many languages and ended up finishing her studies in Europe. She traveled and studied in France, Germany and Austria and eventually landed a job as a Consular Service clerk at the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland.
Her goal was to become a member of the Foreign Service, but a hunting accident set her back. She accidentally shot herself in the leg in 1932; it was later amputated from the knee down and replaced with a wooden leg she nicknamed “Cuthbert.” She didn’t let her misfortune hold her back: she learned to run again and managed as normal a life as possible once again.
Source: CIA
The injury did set her back from working for a time. She had hoped to work for the Department of State, but they would not hire someone with a false leg. She went to American University for graduate school for that time.
After graduate school, she found herself back in Paris. At this time, Germany had just invaded Poland. She went to enlist as an ambulance driver with the French army. She wanted to help after seeing how the Nazis were treating Jewish people in Poland.
She later joined the British Resistance and went undercover as a journalist. In 1941, she sent a cable to a friend working at the New York Post, according to an article on her in said newspaper. She asked if the paper would be interested in running her reports on the war, specifically about life in France after Paris had just surrendered to the Nazis.
The paper was of course interested, but concerned that the assignment was dangerous. She laughed at the notion of her idea being dangerous and went on to correspond under the alias Brigitte LeContre, codenamed further as Germaine.
Eventually, the Germans became aware of a female spy among them. They referred to her as “The Limping Lady” and issued orders to capture her.
She was able to escape along with some other organizers. The group eventually made it to London where they began to learn wireless communication via radio. After learning this skill, she joined the espionage organization the Office of Strategic Services. This work took her back to France. There she disguised herself as an old woman and listened to German soldiers as they spoke, quickly reporting what she could translate back over the radio.
After the war, President Truman wanted to honor her, but she refused, as she did not want her identity known. She was given an honor in a private ceremony instead. She was the only American woman and first civilian to earn the Distinguished Service Cross award. The OSS disbanded but operations became what we know today as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). She worked there until she was 60.
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