16. She Took Her Spy Work to North Africa
In 1941, under cover of health reasons and doctor’s orders after a bout of pneumonia, Josephine Baker left German-occupied Europe for French North Africa, then under the control of the collaborationist French Vichy regime. In reality, she was there to further assist the Resistance. Basing herself out of Morocco, she travelled back and forth to Francisco Franco’s fascist Spain, gathering information and transmitting it to Allied intelligence. Counting on her celebrity to avoid a strip search, she pinned notes of intelligence gathered to her underwear.