Virginia Hall’s Escape Across the Pyrenees Mountains

In the winter of 1942, the Allies’ first female resident spy in France, Virginia Hall, was discovered by Gestapo Chief Klaus Barbie–“The Butcher of Lyon.” Hall’s only avenue of escape was across the rugged Pyrenees mountains. For three days and over 50 miles Hall dragged her prosthetic limb, nicknamed “Cuthbert,” through deep snow and ice. My wife Janet and I discovered Virginia Hall’s Freedom Trail in September 2017 and took this video of the mountains Virginia scaled to reach freedom in Spain. The video was taken on the Spanish side looking northeast into the town Mantet, in France.