28. Virginia Hall Coordinated With the Resistance, Led a Network of 1500 members, and Became the Only Civilian Woman to Receive a Distinguished Service Cross in WWII
Klaus Barbie, a Gestapo official known as “The Butcher of Lyon” for the thousands of resistance and suspected resistance members whom he had tortured and eliminated, was hot on Virginia Hall’s trail. He put up wanted posters of her all over the place, that featured a sketch of her face above the words: “The Enemy’s Most Dangerous Spy – We Must Find and Destroy Her!” Hall, who was so good at disguises that she could be four different women with four different identities in a single afternoon, evaded his clutches. Eventually, things got hot enough that she had to flee France. She made a harrowing escape in 1942 that included a 50-mile trek on foot in heavy snow across the Pyrenees Mountains into neutral Spain. The Spanish arrested her for lack of an entrance visa, and she spent six weeks in jail before she was finally freed and returned to Britain.
Soon as she caught her breath she volunteered to return to France, but the SOE decided it was too dangerous. By then, however, the US had joined WWII, and its Office of Strategic Services (OSS), America’s version of the SOE, was glad to have her. Back in France, this time as an OSS agent, Hall called in airdrops for the Resistance, and coordinated their activities with the Allies. Her network eventually numbered 1500 members, including a French-American soldier, Paul Goillot, whom she eventually married. Virginia Hall’s extraordinary heroism earned her a Distinguished Service Cross – she was the only woman to receive such an award, America’s second highest distinction, in WWII. After the war, she spent fifteen years in the CIA. Despite her vast hands-on experience, she faced discrimination as a woman, and was restricted to desk duty. She eventually resigned in 1966, and perished in relative obscurity in 1982.