Virginia Hall Blog

Virginia Hall had no choice. Fresh from defeat in north Africa, retreating Nazis were flooding into occupied France. French secret agents tipped-off Allied spy, Virginia Hall, that the Gestapo was coming for her. The ports were sealed. There was only one way to escape...

Virginia Hall went underground after the US entered WWII. She changed hotels and became “Brigitte Lecontre” to foil the secret police chasing her.

Virginia Hall received the MBE–one of the UK’s highest awards–for her work in France. She was suspicious that the award was her “gold watch,” and that she would not be allowed to return to France. Her suspicions were well founded. Her bosses in SOE had no intention of allowing Virginia to return to France, calling it a suicide mission. But Virginia did return…

Virginia Hall was thrown into Spanish prison for crossing the border illegally. Virginia had critical intelligence that London desperately needed and had her cell-mate–a Spanish prostitute–smuggle the note out of prison. About a month later, Virginia was released and despite the dangers, wanted to return to France.

After an exhausting three-day trek across the snow-capped Pyrenees, Virginia’s ordeal wasn’t over. She arrived too early to the train station in Spain and was arrested for illegally crossing the border.

Virginia Hall was betrayed by a Catholic priest who was an agent of German intelligence. Her only avenue of escape was over the snow-capped Pyrenees in winter. She dragged her prosthetic limb, she nicknamed Cuthbert, behind her for many miles.

Working Behind the Lines in Vichy Virginia entered France in the spring of 1941 as an undercover agent for British Intelligence with a mission to provide information on political developments, economic conditions, and the French will to resist the German occupation....

Covering Her Tracks Virginia, recruited by British Intelligence to be its "eyes and ears" in Vichy France, needed a cover story to keep the French Secret Police and Gestapo from prying into her clandestine life. Early in 1941 she contacted a family friend on the Board...

Virginia Hall was driving an ambulance when the Nazis invaded France. She fled to London where British spymasters quickly recruited Virginia to be America’s first and greatest spy of the Second World War.

Virginia Hall’s school yearbook shows her to have a streak of boldness, independence, and self-confidence. She also loved to act in school plays–and assuming the role of someone else was perfect training for a spy.