The Lady Is a Spy

by Don Mitchell

  In his response to the president, Secretary of State Hull denied that the State Department’s regulations rigidly excluded individuals from serving in the Foreign Service as long as a physical disability did not “seriously interfere with his official performance.” The State Department’s Personnel Board and Medical Board had the discretion to consider situations on a case-by-case basis. Specifically regarding Virginia’s application to the Foreign Service, Hull went on to tell the president:

  … I have considered the case of Miss Virginia Hall, who was the subject of the correspondence which occasioned your comment. I find that Miss Hall’s record as a clerk in the Foreign Service has not been such as to commend her to the Personnel Board for appointment into the career Service, although her services in a clerical capacity cannot be termed unsatisfactory. It was undoubtedly this consideration, along with her physical disability, which was in mind when the instruction was drafted informing her that her application for designation to take the examination could not be approved …

  President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull in Hyde Park, New York.

  Hull offered faint praise of Virginia in his letter to the president when he stated that “her services in a clerical capacity cannot be termed unsatisfactory,” but he failed to elaborate on specifically what it was in her clerical role that “has not been such as to commend her to the Personnel Board for appointment into the career Service” other than “her physical disability.” The secretary of state simply assured the president that Virginia was not being discriminated against solely because of her physical disability. Her appeal had gone to the secretary of state as well as the president of the United States, and that appeared to be the end of the matter. The door to advancement in a career position was apparently closed.

  Discouraged, Virginia transferred from Venice in 1938 to continue performing clerical work at the US Consulate in Tallinn, Estonia.

  Virginia’s Estonian ID.

  With war clouds gathering over Europe, and facing the harsh reality that she didn’t have a future in the State Department, in April 1939, Virginia resigned. At the time, the State Department offered to pay the expenses of its employees to return to the United States for up to one year from the date of resignation. Virginia decided to stay in Europe while she figured out what to do next with her life.

  As the 1930s came to a close, Europe had become a powder keg, just waiting to be ignited. While Virginia was still in Estonia, the match was lit on September 1, 1939, when German forces invaded Poland. Two days later, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany. World War II had begun.

  Virginia left Tallinn on October 25, 1939, and arrived in France on January 18, 1940. It was unclear what role Virginia would play in this terrifying new world, but she knew she wanted to be involved and help if she could.

  Virginia playing chess outside.

  With a broader conflict across Europe all but certain, Virginia was determined to do her part. From the outset, she was willing to place herself in harm’s way in defense of freedom. In February 1940, Virginia, without first informing her family, joined a French ambulance unit attached to the Ninth Artillery Regiment. Her disability was apparently no obstacle to being accepted by the French Army. Hostilities in Europe reached a new level in April, when Germany attacked Norway and Denmark.

  On May 6, 1940, Virginia moved up to a forward station at Droitaumont about twenty miles from Metz, in northeast France, close to the German border. Several days later on May 10, German forces invaded Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. Around this time, Virginia sent a letter to her mother stating that she was living in a cottage and that there was “plenty of good food.” Virginia reported that she was at the front, “weary and grubby” but “well taken care of.”

  In an interview with a reporter from the Baltimore Sun in June 1940, Virginia’s mother stated that she was anxiously awaiting further word from her daughter, whom she hadn’t heard from since that letter in early May. Virginia’s remarks in that letter did not reassure her mother. “These words were well-intentioned,” Mrs. Hall told the reporter, “but they afford me little consolation, for in her characteristic manner she is trying to make things sound better for me.”

  The Baltimore Sun reports on Virginia’s work as an ambulance driver for the French Army.

  Great Britain’s government urged France to continue the fight against Hitler’s forces, but France’s leadership sued for peace. On June 16, 1940, two days after German forces occupied Paris, the elderly Marshal Henri-Philippe Pétain, a military hero of World War I, became prime minister of France. His first responsibility was to initiate truce negotiations with the Germans. On June 22, the two countries signed an armistice that divided France into a northern zone controlled by the German Army, and a southern zone administered by Pétain’s government and located in the resort town of Vichy. Some thought of Pétain as the country’s savior in a time of grave national emergency. However, many others thought of Pétain as a traitor to France and the leader of an oppressive, authoritarian regime that supported the German war effort, as well as the Nazis’ brutal persecution of Jews.

  Adolf Hitler in front of the Eiffel Tower a few weeks after the German occupation began.

  Virginia was in Paris when France surrendered to Germany on June 22, 1940. She would later say that “at the time of defeat we all felt nothing but fury.” Virginia eventually wrangled an exit visa from France and went by train through Spain to Lisbon, Portugal, and then took a plane to England on September 1, 1940.

  Hitler salute in Vichy, France.

  Pétain and his regime in Vichy made the complete military occupation of France unnecessary. The Germans exploited the French, shipping trainloads of food and other products back to Germany. This in turn created massive food shortages and required rationing for the demoralized French population. Approximately 1.8 million French prisoners of war (POWs) were held in Germany and fighting with the Germans resulted in roughly three hundred thousand dead or seriously injured French citizens.

  German soldiers in front of the Paris opera house.

  The people of France paid a high price for Pétain’s peace agreement with Nazi Germany. Their living standards declined, and they lost their democratic rights. Vichy France became a police state and a willing accomplice in the Holocaust, and anyone who opposed the new regime was persecuted. The Nazi occupation of France was particularly jarring in Paris, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Buildings were covered with swastikas, German road signs were visible throughout the city, and Hitler’s soldiers seemed to be everywhere. French citizens who actively supported and cooperated with the Vichy government became known as collaborators.

  Many young Frenchmen, facing the prospect of forced labor in Germany, took to the hills in France. They became natural recruits to fight against Vichy and the Nazis. Ultimately, many of them turned to the Resistance—anyone who fought against German or Vichy rule in France—to provide them with food and shelter.

  The rural guerrilla bands of French Resistance fighters were known as the Maquis, and the individual fighters were referred to as maquisards. Many of them were working-class young men under the age of twenty-five, representing a broad spectrum of political affiliations. They became more effective organizationally as the war went on.

  French Maquis guerrillas in the mountains.

  Despite the fact that France had become a police state, many citizens had no desire to collaborate with the German invaders. It was important for them to do what they could to resist the new regime. In a famous speech delivered on June 18, 1940, French general Charles de Gaulle proclaimed himself leader of the French government-in-exile. In a BBC radio broadcast to his countrymen, he called on them to resist the German invaders. He stated:

  I, General de Gaulle, now in London, call upon the French officers and soldiers who are or who may find themselves on British soil, with or without their weapons, I call upon the engineers and the skilled workers in the armame
nts industry who are or who may find themselves on British soil, to join me. Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance must not and shall not die. Tomorrow, as today, I shall speak on the radio from London.

  Outside of France, de Gaulle became the most prominent of the résistants, as they were known.

  Many French citizens listened to the BBC radio broadcasts—a violation of law in the new order. These broadcasts included a nightly news program in French, as well as brief segments for “Free French,” which helped make de Gaulle the embodiment of opposition to the Vichy regime.

  Adolescent members of the French Resistance marching with their weapons drawn.

  But the résistants who took the greatest risks were those who lived in France. A scholar of the Resistance characterized its members as “ordinary people, who were angry, humiliated or ashamed, or all three at the same time, decided to change things, despite the fact that they had neither the experience nor the means to make things happen. They had the will, and that was enough.” The Resistance took many forms, from writing slogans on walls, to producing and distributing underground newspapers, to committing various acts of sabotage. All these activities were dangerous.

  Being a member of the secret army of the Resistance in some ways posed greater risks for the résistants than it did for uniformed soldiers in the regular army. If the uniformed military was captured by the enemy, certain protections were afforded them under military codes of warfare. But members of the Resistance, wearing civilian clothing, could only operate effectively if they were undetected. They were isolated, underfunded or with no resources at all, and often didn’t have any weapons or other military equipment. And they constantly lived under the tremendous stress of being discovered and betrayed, which in turn would have led to almost certain imprisonment, torture, and even execution.

  Some experts estimate that no more than five hundred thousand French citizens—or less than 2 percent of the French population—were involved in the Resistance. Of that number, approximately one hundred thousand were thought to have died during World War II: killed in combat, executed, or died while imprisoned. The Resistance groups were unified in their commitment to fighting the occupation, yet it was sometimes a challenge to get so many different groups unified in specific actions against the Nazis and the Vichy regime. But the lack of coordination among these small groups also added to their security when members were betrayed, and fewer members were at risk when someone was compromised. This was the challenging environment in which Virginia Hall and others would have to operate.

  When Virginia arrived in wartime London in September 1940, she was fortunate to get a job at the US Embassy. At a salary of $1,200 a year, she was employed as a code clerk and accountant, where her duties included handling confidential codes for Raymond Lee, a general in the United States Army who was serving as the US military attaché and head of intelligence in London.

  Virginia began her job at the embassy during a particularly tumultuous time. Hitler’s forces had defeated France and much of Western Europe. Great Britain stood alone. The United States had not yet entered the war, and the British knew that American support would be key to their national survival.

  Hitler was furious at the British Royal Air Force (RAF) for bombing German cities, and he became determined to destroy the British capital city and break the will of the people. In early September 1940, the German air force, or Luftwaffe, began a massive bombing campaign against London and other British cities in an effort both to defeat British morale and draw the RAF into destructive battles. This unprecedented air attack against British civilian targets became known as the Blitz.

  An underground station converted into a shelter in London’s West End during the Blitz.

  Virginia provided support to General Lee, who was a highly capable and sophisticated intelligence specialist. Additionally, he liked and understood the British, and was sympathetic to their plight but was ever mindful of America’s official neutrality in the conflict.

  Lee was also an astute observer of life in London during this bleak period. Virginia inhabited this same world. Lee dutifully recorded the great reduction in traffic, the fact that most men—and many women—were wearing military uniforms, the need to carry identification and ration cards at all times, and that many Londoners were carrying gas masks. Lights were cut off or shaded after sunset on threat of fines or imprisonment. Food was heavily rationed, and “one gets only a lump of sugar and a thin little flake of butter.” Junk metal was extensively salvaged for the war effort. No one was permitted on the beaches, which were covered with barbed wire emplacements to prevent a potential German invasion. And no radios were allowed in cars.

  Virginia sitting at table.

  A few days after Hitler unleashed the Blitz, General Lee commented that “if there was ever a time when one should wear life like a loose garment, this is it.” He saw the frightening assault on London firsthand, as did Virginia, but kept the destruction in perspective. After one Nazi raid, he commented, “A really large amount of damage was done last night. But none of it was vital. It is all of it, or nearly all, just aimless, random battering. To hell with Hitler, I say.”

  Prime Minister Winston Churchill inspects German bombing damage to London’s East End.

  The brutality of the London Blitz increased American sympathy to the plight of Great Britain, and a growing number of Americans saw the necessity of fighting the Nazi threat. Undoubtedly, Virginia Hall felt the same way. Only five months after she began her position in the US Embassy in London, her wartime service took a new direction as she decided to risk everything to become a spy for the British.

  When France collapsed, the United States was still not involved in the war. Great Britain had only the English Channel standing between it and continental Europe, which was largely under the control of Nazi Germany. Since the British Army had been pushed out of continental Europe, the island nation had to determine how it could best fight Hitler. They ultimately decided on a three-part strategy: strategic aerial bombing, a naval blockade, and undermining German rule in occupied nations through sabotage and subversion.

  On July 19, 1940, Adolf Hitler delivered a speech in Berlin boasting of his government’s military victories and predicting Great Britain’s defeat. That same day, in a memorandum to his war cabinet, Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced the creation of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The new organization was to “co-ordinate all actions by way of subversion and sabotage against the enemy overseas.” Efforts at subversion were intended to foster popular discontent, if not revolt against the occupiers.

  The organization sought to destroy or damage trains, bridges, factories, and other facilities that were important to the enemy, as well as to collect information on the enemy’s intentions and capabilities. This covert activity was led or supported by SOE agents in occupied countries such as France, Albania, Belgium, and Greece. The SOE also had a branch focused on Asia. Its agents were dropped behind enemy lines by parachute, or brought ashore by submarines or small boats. Churchill’s directive to the secretive new organization was simple and straightforward: “And now set Europe ablaze.” The organization was divided into different sections, focusing on different countries.

  French Resistance fighters sabotaging a railway in Saône-et-Loire.

  The component of the SOE dealing with France, or F Section as it was known, would ultimately build up almost a hundred circuits—networks of subversive agents—in France. They would arm thousands of French members of the Resistance. The SOE’s circuits had code names such as Spindle, Tinker, Wheelwright, Stockbroker, Author, and Marksman. Over 100 of the approximately 450 agents the SOE sent to France did not survive the war.

  The core of the SOE’s circuits were three-person teams, each of which played a distinct role. The team leader was an organizer who was responsible for planning and recruiting individuals to the Resistance. The courier traveled among the other members of the team and members of the Resistance, transporting
messages, funds, equipment, and weaponry. Because many men were absent from the home front, women were less conspicuous traveling throughout the country and often served as couriers.

  The third member of the team was the wireless telegraph, or W/T, operator who would send coded messages to London related to agents, supply drops, and other important information regarding the operational environment on the ground. Keeping in contact with London was essential for the circuits to accomplish their missions. The W/T operator was burdened with one or two suitcases of heavy equipment and the threat of being detected by German forces on the lookout for Resistance communications. German listening stations would pick up a signal and then vans or German forces on foot would arrive at the source of the transmission.

  These wireless telegraph operators took tremendous risks and were under enormous pressure to keep their messages short to avoid detection. By the middle of 1943, the average wireless telegraph operator in France was arrested after only six weeks of doing their job.

  Recruiting the right individuals to perform these dangerous and important roles for the SOE was a high priority. The most sought after qualities for prospective agents were “a level head and steady nerves.”

  On Tuesday evening, January 14, 1941, Virginia had one of the more important encounters of her life. She was at a social gathering in London, and during the course of the evening, an SOE official developed more than a social interest in the thirty-four-year-old American who was working at the US Embassy. A priority was gauging Virginia’s willingness to return to continental Europe.