by Don Mitchell
“There are a lot of contacts,” she noted, “but they need following up and organizing, none of which has been done, to my knowledge.”
In a communication to London in early March 1942, Virginia mentioned that nine Free French officers had landed in France in the previous several weeks. She was troubled that she was not being given more information about such matters so she could provide assistance and avoid mishaps. “It would be greatly appreciated if we could be informed of the identity of such men and when they land, to avoid any tragic mistakes and so that I could warn my French contacts, or confirm, as the case might be.” Making headquarters aware of the operational challenges on the ground would be an ongoing struggle for Virginia and other SOE agents.
Up to the end of July 1942, Virginia continued to receive War Office Liaison (W.O.L.) information through Dr. Jean Rousset. But Dr. Rousset said that because of the difficulty in making the weekly trip to visit her, Virginia would be seeing a courier instead. He told her that she “could have complete confidence in the courier and give him both the rest of the money [she] had for him (150 grand) and a couple of documents [she] had promised him …”
The courier left his package with Dr. Rousset, but because Virginia had not deposited her package for the courier, and the courier was in a hurry, he returned to Paris stating that he’d come back within a week. The courier did so on August 25, 1942, and he was insistent on seeing Virginia. As soon as Dr. Rousset advised Virginia that the courier had arrived, Virginia took the money and went to see him.
Virginia met the courier in one of Dr. Rousset’s waiting rooms. Standing before her was a man about five feet, two inches tall, of normal build, bald but with light brown hair around the edges, prominent cheekbones, penetrating light blue eyes, thin lips, and a cleft chin. He introduced himself to Virginia as Abbé Alesch. (An abbé in France is a lower-ranking clergyman.) He told Virginia that he was using the name of D’Acquin—after St. Thomas Aquinas—and gave the name of his hotel next to the cathedral in Lyon, as well as his address in a suburb of Paris.
A British agent from Paris had been providing Virginia with reports that she had been asked to pass along to London. However, Alesch told Virginia that agent had disappeared and the circuit was disorganized. What should he do? The abbé also warned Virginia that the zone she was living in was dangerous and that “great prudence should be observed.” In reply, Virginia told him to return to Paris and to do what he could to put those at risk into safety. In ten days, Virginia would have instructions for him.
The abbé spoke French with “a pronounced German accent,” which troubled Virginia. She was wary of him. He later told her that he was Alsatian—one of the German-speaking inhabitants of the French region of Alsace—which Virginia thought explained his accent. Still, could he be working for the Germans? Virginia recalled: “He did not make a very favorable impression on me and I wired to London giving his name and address, asking that he be checked by S.I.S. [Great Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service] agents in Paris and that I be given instructions as to what to do with him.”
London responded to Virginia’s query by directing her to “continue to take his stuff, to have him reorganized and to give him one hundred thousand francs and films for microphoto work.” Virginia saw the abbé again in September 1942, at which time she gave him the money, his instructions, and the films. It was the last time the two would meet.
At that meeting, Alesch reported to Virginia that several of their agents had been arrested or unaccountably vanished. Virginia noted that
he also says that he is out adrift now … He asked instructions and advice and insisted that he be put in touch with someone else as well as myself, in case I disappeared over night. In short he was a problem child. I told him to go back to Paris to try to trace the people thru [sic] the person who distributes the money … to try to reorganize and then to return here about the twentieth of September to report and receive his instructions.
Because Virginia was wary of Alesch, she would not give him her true name or tell him where she lived. After the September meeting, Virginia refused to meet with the abbé again, and he was directed to simply place his information in the designated letter box. Dr. Rousset, who Virginia considered a good Catholic, continued to insist that her doubts about the abbé were unfounded, as Alesch had the manners of an abbé.
It would later turn out that Virginia’s concerns were justified.
One day in September 1942, Virginia checked her letter box in Lyon and found an unsigned note indicating that Alex, a Resistance member, and two of his colleagues, Fabian and Justin, had been arrested. Virginia immediately went to the local prison to make inquiries, but the guard at the gate denied knowing anything about the matter.
A contact Virginia referred to as Pompey confirmed that the men were in prison and he promised to learn what the charges were against them. Virginia noted, however, that Pompey “wasn’t very active so far as help was concerned, nor did he tell me how or why they were arrested.”
Virginia was ultimately able to determine what happened to the men. A nervous Justin was left alone in a café and instantly drew the attention of a police inspector, who asked what his business was in the area. The inspector was not satisfied with the answers and searched the contents of Justin’s pockets. The money he was carrying looked suspiciously new, and the inspector assumed that Justin was an agent who had come from England or Germany. When Justin’s two companions stopped by, the inspector detained them as well and took all three men to the police station.
Adding to the police’s suspicions, Fabian and Alex had identity cards from different towns but made out in the same handwriting. Still, there were individuals sympathetic to the Resistance at the police station who allowed the men to burn a few of their notes and papers, as well as conceal some of their other incriminating possessions. As Virginia noted, “the result is that all three were held but that there was no serious charge against them.”
Alex and Fabian were ultimately sent to Castres, in southern France, and Justin was placed in a camp not far from Toulouse. Virginia supported them making an escape attempt by providing the men with instructions and money. However, Pompey got wind of the proposed escape and asked that the attempt be delayed by several weeks. Virginia complied with his request. After two weeks of captivity, the effort to release them finally went forward. She expressed concern, however, that the two men in Castres would be sent to separate camps, which would make their escape more complicated.
Two sympathetic French policemen came to see Virginia, who informed her that they would engineer an escape for Alex and his companions in early October. One would be placed in the country and the other two would enter a clinic while they awaited a small boat or some other means of escape. Virginia promised one of the security men that if he was able to successfully arrange this escape, she would help him get to England. Virginia also agreed to Pompey’s request to send the men out of France after their escape.
In addition, Pompey was insistent that Virginia help a young friend of his to leave France and escape into Spain. Pompey told Virginia that the young man was going on a mission to Spain and would return to France. Virginia, however, suspected that the young man, married to an Englishwoman and the father of two young boys, actually wanted to travel on to England. In addition, the young man only spoke English and French. Despite Virginia’s mistrust of Pompey, she stated that “I felt that I had to throw a bone to the lion.” She made the travel arrangements as a favor to Pompey. But she asked London to inform her if the man did, in fact, arrive there. “Let me know, because it is always nice to know how much people are lying to one.”
It’s unclear what became of these individuals. But that was often the case dealing with escapees. One did one’s best for them and hoped things would ultimately work out.
In the first week of October, Virginia stated that she was moving to an apartment on the sixth floor of a building. The building didn’t have an elevator, undoubtedly making it s
omewhat challenging for Virginia, who had to make the climb with her artificial leg. She complained that “somebody has been a dope and given my name and address away and I am getting astounding personages here who want to go to England.”
Not only did Virginia not know some of the people coming to her home, she did not know the people who referred them to her. But she was determined to do whatever she could for people in need. One of the British agents Virginia assisted observed, “If you sit in her kitchen long enough, you will see most people pass through with one sort of trouble or other, which she promptly deals with.”
While generally cautious, Virginia’s willingness to perform her mission sometimes led others to question her operational security. For example, one British agent visited her apartment at a time when it was a major rendezvous for SOE agents. He “found the entire passage-way absolutely dripping with aerial [radio antenna], well over 70 ft. of it. It was such a blatant announcement of the agent’s activities” that the agent “left immediately and never returned.”
Virginia was aware that her address in Lyon had been provided to the pro-Nazi Vichy authorities. While her name had not been provided to them, she realized that “it wouldn’t be hard to guess.” Her personal security was increasingly at risk. As the Gestapo became aware of Virginia and her activities, they issued a frightening edict: “The woman who limps is one of the most dangerous Allied agents in France. We must find and destroy her.”
Virginia knew her luck was running out, and she needed to do something about it. She wrote London: “… I think my time is about up and request that you arrange a Clipper [airplane] passage for me for the end of October—real or fake—to permit me to get in my visas and clear out if necessary.” As a security precaution, she added that she was “trying to see no one at my flat for the time being.”
Virginia informed London that a particular Resistance leader had left Lyon. He considered himself the head of Le Coq enchaîné, a French Resistance group in the Lyon area. But Virginia reported that the group “has practically blown up—one man was taken and gave away about twenty others. I don’t know how or where it will end.” Nevertheless, Virginia asked for more instructions related to arms and their distribution. Yet she offered a caution as well. She warned London that “if you go arming local organizations, as I have already pointed out, you are going to get a state of bloody anarchy here one day when you will need a little unity.” Virginia was undoubtedly anticipating the dynamics in France when it would one day be liberated from the German occupation.
Toward the end of 1942, it became clear that it was just a matter of time before unoccupied France would soon be overtaken by Germany. The threat to Virginia and her Resistance colleagues was growing.
On November 5, 1942, Maurice Buckmaster followed up with arrangements for Virginia’s departure, emphasizing that George Backer of the New York Post was recalling her from France. He also provided details regarding Virginia’s passport as a precondition before she could be provided transport facilities in Lisbon, Portugal. Buckmaster requested that the New York Post’s home office book passage for Virginia on a Clipper aircraft and asked that Virginia be informed directly about this by Backer or through the US Consulate in Lyon.
On Saturday, November 7, 1942, Philomène, as Virginia was then known, was informed by the American Consulate that an invasion of North Africa was imminent, and that she should seriously consider leaving Lyon as soon as possible unless she wished to “stay in forced residence for the duration” of hostilities. While Virginia was a risk taker, she was also sensible, and she started preparing for her departure. She immediately began to destroy all records at her home and at work. She gave the seals, blank documents, and money she had on hand—approximately 200,000 francs—to a colleague, asking him to look after her other contacts in the French Resistance. Virginia also told her colleagues that if a German occupation of Vichy France were to take place, “they should not be surprised by my abrupt departure.”
Lyon was becoming a less hospitable operational base for Virginia, and it was clear her days there were numbered. In November 1942, Klaus Barbie was made head of the Gestapo in Lyon, where he established his headquarters in the Hôtel Terminus. He would become known as “the Butcher of Lyon” for his brutality in torturing and executing prisoners. Barbie had apparently heard of Virginia’s activities in support of the Resistance. An agent reported that Barbie, mistaking Virginia’s country of origin, stated that “he would give anything to put his hands on that Canadian bitch.”
Klaus Barbie.
On Sunday morning, November 8, 1942, Virginia learned about Operation Torch, the American and British invasion of French North Africa, which was launched that day. The Germans were now certain to finally take over unoccupied France. Security procedures in the free zone of France were somewhat lax and that was certain to change when the Germans invaded the region. (The Germans would invade southern France on November 11.)
Virginia was strongly encouraged to leave France immediately. She tried to reach out to two of her contacts, but neither showed up to meet with her. “I decided that they were nervous about coming to the flat or else took it for granted that I had left.”
Allied troops on the beaches near Algiers, Algeria, for Operation Torch.
At 9:00 that evening, one of Virginia’s contacts told her that the Germans were expected to arrive in Lyon sometime between midnight and Monday morning. She knew she had to leave immediately.
She could be proud of what she had accomplished during her operational tour of France. As one scholar of the SOE put it, Virginia had “an imperturbable temper; she took risks often but intelligently, and […] was never once arrested nor more than superficially questioned.” Indeed, “without her indispensable work about half of F section’s early operations in France could never have been carried out at all.”
Virginia packed her bag and took the 11:00 p.m. train from Lyon to Perpignan, a small city in southern France, close to the Mediterranean. When she arrived, Virginia approached a man, code-named Gilbert, who could usually be found on the city square between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. every day. Gilbert obtained guides for Virginia, at a cost of 20,000 francs per person. Virginia paid for herself, as well as three other companions who had no money.
Virginia left Perpignan on the night of Wednesday, November 11, 1942, and traveled over the Pyrénées Mountains with a Spanish guide as well as “two London-based Frenchmen, and a Congo Captain from Belgium.” They did not use the regular escape lines. The group traveled via Villefranche by foot to Lavelanet, a small French town in the Midi-Pyrénées. They hiked over the Col de Tivoli, and then down about ten miles from Camprodon, a town in Spain located in the Pyrénées near the border with France. From there, she and her companions reached the town of Sant Joan de les Abadesses in Catalonia, Spain.
The hike to freedom was a challenge, particularly for Virginia with her prosthetic leg. One of her radio transmissions to London reported that Virginia was having difficulty with her artificial limb. She stated, “Cuthbert is giving me trouble, but I can cope.” The London operator, apparently unaware of Virginia’s nickname for her prosthetic leg, replied, “If Cuthbert is giving you trouble, have him eliminated.”
In the predawn hours of Saturday, November 14, Virginia and her group hoped to catch the 5:45 train there to Barcelona, Spain. They didn’t make it. When they arrived in the town at 4:30 a.m., they were picked up by local authorities because they didn’t have any papers. Virginia was placed in a prison for prostitutes, and she tried to make the most of her three weeks in jail. During her daily half hour of activity in the prison yard, Virginia befriended an eighty-two-year-old woman who was also jailed there.
A younger woman Virginia befriended proved particularly useful. When this young prostitute was finally released, she took with her a letter from Virginia and mailed it to the US Consulate in Barcelona. Virginia would be released from jail on Wednesday evening, December 2, 1942, as a result of the efforts of the US Consulate
. And on January 19, 1943, Virginia returned to the United Kingdom.
After Virginia’s narrow escape from Nazi-occupied France and her release from prison in Spain, she had the opportunity to rest and recover from her experience. She told her SOE colleagues about the situation in France and the details of her operational activities, as well as providing her best knowledge of the location of their agents’ wireless telegraph sets.
Yet Virginia was not content to remain on the sidelines. She wanted to return to France, but her superiors in the SOE believed it was not safe for her to. Instead, she was offered the opportunity to work in Spain.
In early May 1943, Virginia and several of her SOE colleagues met to discuss her new assignment. Having obtained a transit visa for Portugal and another for Spain as her final destination, Virginia was to work in Spain where her cover was again to be that of a foreign correspondent; this time for the Chicago Times newspaper. In order to establish her credibility with the Spanish authorities, her superiors instructed Virginia to take two to three months and work exclusively as a correspondent before beginning her clandestine SOE work.
In discussing her intelligence work—which included identifying “safe houses and possible personnel for future recruitment”—Virginia raised the question of how she should interact with the American community in Spain. Her British colleagues made it clear to Virginia that “while she should in no way cold-shoulder them, they should not be given any opportunity of suspecting that she was working for the SOE, as no inter-communication was desirable between American and British representatives in the field.” Protecting her operational cover was a high priority.
