Hall, Virginia, 1906-1982

Virginia Hall Goillot DSC, Croix de Guerre, MBE (April 6, 1906 – July 8, 1982), code named Marie and Diane, was an American who worked with the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in France during World War II. After World War II Hall worked for the Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Virginia Hall was born in Baltimore, Maryland on April 6, 1906, to Barbara Virginia Hammel and Edwin Lee Hall.[7] She attended Roland Park Country School and then Radcliffe College of Harvard University and Barnard College of Columbia University, where she studied French, Italian, and German.[7] She also attended George Washington University, where she studied French and Economics. She wanted to finish her studies in Europe, so she traveled the Continent and studied in France, Germany, and Austria, finally landing an appointment as a Consular Service clerk at the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland in 1931.

A few months later she transferred to Smyrna, known later as Izmir, Turkey. In 1933, she tripped on a fence and accidentally shot herself in the left foot while hunting birds. After being diagnosed with gangrene, on the brink of death, as a last ditch attempt her leg was amputated below the knee and replaced with a wooden appendage which she named "Cuthbert". After losing part of her left leg, she worked again as a consular clerk in Venice and in Tallinn, Estonia.[8] Hall made several attempts to become a diplomat with the United States Foreign Service, but women were rarely hired. In 1937, she was turned down by the Department of State because of an obscure rule against hiring people with disabilities as diplomats. Even an appeal for her to be hired to President Franklin D. Roosevelt was unheeded. She resigned from the Department of State in March 1939, still a consular clerk.[9] Early in World War II in February 1940, Hall became an ambulance driver for the army of France. After the defeat of France in June 1940, she made her way to Spain where, by chance, she met a British intelligence officer named George Bellows. Bellows was impressed with her and gave her the telephone number of a "friend" who might be able to help her find employment in England. That friend was Nicolas Bodington, who worked for the newly-created Special Operations Executive (SOE).[7][10] Hall joined the SOE in April 1941 and after training arrived in Vichy France, unoccupied by Germany and nominally independent at that time, on August 23, 1941. She was the second female agent to be sent to France by SOE's F (France) Section, and the first to remain there for a lengthy period of time. The French nicknamed her "la dame qui boite" and the Germans put "the limping lady" on their most wanted list Hall, too well known to visit the prison, assembled safe houses, vehicles, and helpers. A priest smuggled in a radio to Bégué, and from within the prison, he began transmitting to London.

On July 15, 1942, the prisoners escaped and, after hiding in the woods while an intense manhunt took place, all of them met up with Hall in Lyon by August 11. From there, they were smuggled to Spain and thence back to England.[21] The official historian of SOE, M. R. D. Foot, called the escape "one of the war's most useful operations of its kind." Several of the escapees returned later to France and became leaders of SOE networks.[22] she took a wireless course and contacted the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) about a job. She was hired by the Special Operations Branch at the low rank and pay of a second lieutenant and on March 21, 1944, returned to France, arriving by motor gunboat at Beg-an-Fry east of Roscoff in Brittany. Hall joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947, one of the first women hired by the new agency. While in Haute-Loire, Hall had met and fallen in love with an OSS lieutenant, Paul Goillot, who worked with her. In 1957, the couple married after living together off-and-on for years. They retired to a farm in Barnesville, Maryland, where she lived until her death on July 8, 1982. Her husband survived her by five years.[43] She is buried in the Druid Ridge Cemetery, Pikesville, Maryland.

Virginia Hall had a knack for languages and finding adventure. After attending college and graduate school at tops universities in the U.S., she went on to study and travel in Europe in the early 1930s, eventually taking a clerical position with the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, Poland. Her next assignment took her to Izmir, Turkey, where she was in a serious hunting accident and lost her left leg below the knee. She was fitted with a wooden prosthetic leg, which she affectionately nicknamed "Cuthbert." She'd always dreamed of working in the Foreign Service, but when she applied a few years after the accident, she was informed that only the "able-bodied" need apply. Hall was determined not to let her prosthetic leg limit get in the way of her desire for to serve her country overseas.

Not long thereafter, with Europe newly entrenched in World War II, Hall was accepted by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), who gave her extensive training in clandestine tradecraft, communications, weapons, and other resistance activities. She spent 13 months in France in 1941-42, organizing spy networks, running safehouses, and delivering important intelligence to the British government – all while staying one step ahead of the Gestapo, who called her "The Limping Lady."

She fled France just one step ahead of her would-be captors and ultimately joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA , who sent her back to France in 1944, where she again took up the cause of the resistance. In 1945, Hall was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for her heroic actions during the war. She continued intelligence work for the CIA after the war, retiring in 1966 when she reached the mandatory retirement age of 60.