A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of Virginia Hall, WWII’s Most Dangerous Spy

Virginia Hall was born on April 6, 1906. Her parents were Barbara and Edwin (known as Ned) Hall. Barbara was a social climber who married Edwin when he was her boss. Barbara wanted Virginia to marry into money, particularly after Edwin’s fortune dwindled. However, Virginia was a tomboy as a child. Boys pursued her, but she found them exasperating. She “took pleasure in defying convention” (8), and Ned indulged her more boyish pursuits, like athletics and hunting. According to Barbara’s wishes, Virginia—nicknamed Dindy—became engaged at age 19. However, her fiancé was unfaithful and unambitious. Virginia ended their engagement in favor of adventure and travel.

Over the next seven years she studied at five universities. In 1926, lured by tales of independent women and glamor, she moved to Paris, where she met many famous people, including influential politicians and artists. In the autumn of 1927 she moved to Vienna to study at the Konsular Akademie. There she fell in love with a man named Emil, but her father discouraged the relationship.

The increasing number of fascist victories in 1920s Europe disturbed Virginia, and she wondered how she could help. In July of 1929 she returned to America and studied languages in hopes of becoming a professional diplomat. The Foreign Service rejected her, which was common for women of the time. Ned died of a heart attack on January 22, 1931. Seven months later Virginia went to Warsaw to work as a clerk in the American embassy. After a year she took the diplomatic corps entrance exam, but she missed the deadline for the oral portion of the exam because the questions—perhaps intentionally—never arrived. Seven months later she transferred to Smyrna, Turkey.

During a snipe hunt in Smyrna’s marshes, Virginia tripped and accidentally fired a shotgun into her left foot. The wound grew infected over the next three weeks. Gangrene required an amputation below her left knee, but a new infection followed 11 days later. Virginia had a vision of Ned telling her it was “her duty to survive” (16). Heartened by the vision, she recovered quickly, surprising the doctors. She returned to work in May of 1934 and filled several posts in various countries while the Nazi threat grew.

While in Spain during the summer of 1940, Virginia met an undercover agent named George Bellows. He lobbied for her to join Special Operations Executive (SOE), a branch of the British Secret Service, and succeeded. Early the next year, she met with Nicolas Bodington, who helped her make further progress by vouching for her qualifications to his superiors. Bodington was a senior officer in F section, the branch of SOE responsible for operations in France. Virginia became the first female F Section agent and started training on April 1, 1941.

By May the SOE had sent two agents into France by parachute, but they had little success. Despite the fact that many in the SOE were hostile to women, and that Churchill’s Cabinet had banned women from front-line duty, there were high hopes for Virginia’s potential. Her official mission was to serve as “Liaison and Intelligence in Vichy France” (35). Her field name was Germaine Lecontre; in London she was known as agent 3844. Her mission’s code name was Operation Geologist 5.

Virginia went by her own name in Vichy, working as a “special envoy for the New York Post” (39). She filed articles consistently and maintained her cover as a working journalist. Virginia easily charmed local leaders and began building her network—a difficult task in a small town under Gestapo surveillance.

Virginia moved to Lyon after a month because she believed it had more potential for resistance; some of the locals were already publishing anti-Nazi tracts. Virginia arrived at the same time 200,000 refugees were crowding the city. She found a bed at a convent, and some of the nuns became her earliest recruits. She later secured a hotel room and registered as Brigitte Lecontre.

In August of 1941 a dozen new agents arrived, including a former journalist named George Langelaan, a chef named Michael Trotobas, Victor Gerson (codenamed Vic), and an engineer named Ben Cowburn. On September 19, Georges Duboudin (Alain) and Francis Basin (Olive) arrived.

On October 10, Jean-Phillipe Le Harivel arrived to work as Virginia’s wireless operator. However, the police arrested another agent who was supposed to arrive with Le Harivel but was dropped off four miles from his intended destination. He was carrying a map showing an SOE safehouse, the Villa des Bois. An agent code named Christophe invited agents to meet at the Villa des Bois shortly afterwards, unaware that the location was no longer hidden. Germans arrested several agents there during a raid.

With each Allied success, the Germans retaliated against dissidents in Vichy. In Nantes, after a German colonel was shot, the Germans took revenge by shooting 48 citizens. Afterwards, Virginia found it harder to recruit for the Resistance.

Virginia felt isolated after seven weeks in Lyon. There was little guidance from London, and the French police had arrested some of her fellow agents and delivered them to the Germans. Soon the French police had almost wiped out the SOE in the Free Zone. When an agent named André Bloch was taken and killed, the SOE lost its last infiltrated radio operator. Virginia was now the only free member, and the only one who could contact Baker Street.

After the incident at Villa des Bois, Maurice Buckmaster became the chief of F Section in London. He was tasked with elevating standards and eliminating amateurish practices. Bloch’s death meant that everyone took their work more seriously. There was no communication from France, and Buckmaster was always nervous. Virginia was their only informational outlet. The success at the Villa des Bois had emboldened local French authorities, many of whom saw the Nazis as inevitable winners and viewed the British as weak and anti-French.

At the American consulate, Virginia met an RAF pilot named William Simpson. He introduced her to a Resistance fighter named Germaine Guerin. She was the co-owner of a successful brothel. Germaine used her charms and the women she employed to glean information from German officers. Simpson saw that Virginia and Germaine “were both happiest when flirting with danger; they enjoyed a wicked sense of humor; they could both make something out of nothing; and they shared a disdain for their own sensations of fear” (60).

Germaine offered parts of the brothel and three other apartments as safehouses. Virginia had now completed her creation of what she called her “Heckler circuit”: a local network to help her with specific missions in the area. Germaine’s women, whom Virginia called her “tart friends” (61), easily gained intelligence from the men they serviced. Germaine also introduced Virginia to Dr. Jean Rousset, a gynecologist who treated the women and helped them with various acts of sabotage, including the spread of sexually transmitted diseases to Germans. He would introduce Virginia to many useful contacts and created a fake asylum as another safehouse.

Virginia traveled constantly to link SOE operatives and establish better communication between them. Soon she had made more progress than anyone. Although many operatives began to suffer from loneliness and isolation, Virginia had “never felt so free” (70).

The SOE agent Georges Duboudin (Alain) resented that a woman was making so much progress. Virginia wouldn’t let him establish contacts with her circuit because he was reckless, careless, and prone to womanizing. The Villa des Bois disaster had made her more vigilant. Some SOE leaders were irritated that she wouldn’t take orders from Alain, but her reasons were valid. When a well-regarded agent named Peter Churchill joined her, he saw that Alain’s behavior was putting Virginia at risk. Virginia was Peter’s guide as he tried to determine the fates of the agents arrested at the Villa des Bois. They learned that the men were probably still alive. Virginia began making plans to free and shelter them.

In December 1941, Vichy police arrested Virginia and Olive at a café where an inspector seized people to work in German factories. Virginia and Olive snuck out of a window and met Churchill, who then returned to England.

George Backer from the Post asked Virginia to return to America after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Her cover might not save her, as the Axis powers would now target Americans as direct enemies. Although Backer’s request made Virginia more determined to stay and succeed. she was sad throughout early 1942. She received few letters and was uncharacteristically despondent when she wrote to Bodington. In the letter, she chastised herself for her weakness; she realized that she needed aggression, not vulnerability. Her unit was understaffed since the arrested agents had not been replaced, and she felt that she was stretched too thin.

In February 1942, an agent named Ben Cowburn visited Virginia to tell her that her “existence and whereabouts were most likely known to the Germans” (84). He had grown increasingly wary after a female double agent—Mathilde Carre, known as La Chatte—betrayed an agent known as Lucas. Virginia, with her father’s vision in mind, still refused to leave.

Around this time, French factory workers had begun to strike, hindering Germany’s manufacturing efforts. Virginia worked harder than ever and as her fame and notoriety grew, her situation became riskier. Virginia increased her security measures and continued her plans to break people out of prison. Gerry Morel, an F Section agent, knocked on her door in March 1942. She had helped him escape from prison and now helped him escape the country; this was her first official victory as the director of a mission.

In a Post article on June 22 Virginia announced that Parisian Jews must now wear the yellow star. Her time as a journalist was ending. Simultaneously, Alain was growing more lackadaisical and lazy. In March, Virginia had alerted Baker Street about his behavior. Edward Zeff, a wireless operator, had arrived in Lyon to help Virginia the following month. Alain then formally complained that Virginia was taking credit for his work and demanded more money. When asked for an assessment, Zeff said that Alain was a poor leader and that Virginia was too curt with him. In June, one of Alain’s teams was caught while gathering a supply drop. Only Alain was released. When he bragged about the police officer that let him go, the Gestapo learned about it and tortured the officer for 48 hours.

Meanwhile, an agent named Denis Rake had come to help Zeff. He was a music hall artiste who was, unusually for the time, “semiopenly gay” (107).

The Funkabwehr—part of the German secret service, responsible for surveillance and pursuing the transmitters of suspicious wireless messages—moved nearer to Virginia in the summer of 1942. Since the Funkabwehr could often narrow in on the signal within 30 minutes of a transmission, the life expectancy for radio operators was less than three months. Virginia took many of them in and reassured them in their work.

In June, Buckmaster ordered Virginia to return to London to discuss F Section. He was worried about her vulnerability and the contacts F Section would lose if she were captured. She delayed her response and blamed the weather for making it hard to transmit messages. She never came back: “It became clear a few days later what Virginia had been working on, and why she could not be spared” (111).