They Rejected Her for Her Wooden Leg. Then She Became America’s Most Dangerous Spy: Virginia Hall

In 1937, the U.S. State Department turned Virginia Hall down for a diplomatic post because she had lost the lower part of her left leg. Five years later, the Germans had a name for her, the limping lady, and they wanted her badly. Born in Baltimore in 1906, Virginia Hall lost her leg in a hunting accident in Turkey in 1933 and named her wooden leg Cuthbert. When her own government closed the door on her, she drove ambulances for the French army, joined Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) and built a spy network in Lyon under cover as a New York Post reporter. Betrayed by a priest working for German military intelligence, she escaped on foot over the Pyrenees in November 1942. SOE refused to send her back. She went anyway, with America's Office of Strategic Services (OSS), landing in Brittany in March 1944 disguised as an old French peasant woman. By that summer she was arming and directing about 1,500 Maquis fighters in the Haute-Loire. She became the only civilian woman awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in the Second World War, declined a public ceremony with President Truman, and then spent much of her CIA career at a desk. This is a single-life documentary on how she did it, and on whether America ever gave her the recognition she earned. CHAPTERS 00:00 Cuthbert in the Pyrenees, November 1942 [0:00] Baltimore, Smyrna and the first refusal [0:00] The fall of France and the call to SOE [0:00] Lyon and the Heckler network [0:00] The priest and the mountains [0:00] Refused by SOE, back with the OSS [0:00] Haute-Loire and the Maquis [0:00] The Distinguished Service Cross [0:00] The CIA years SOURCES AND FURTHER READING CIA.gov, "Virginia Hall: The Courage and Daring of 'The Limping Lady'" Craig Gralley, "A Climb to Freedom", Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 61 (CIA) Defense Intelligence Agency, "Faces of Defense Intelligence: Virginia Hall" Smithsonian Magazine, articles on Virginia Hall Elizabeth P. McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies: The Women of the OSS (1998) Judith L. Pearson, The Wolves at the Door (2005) Yad Vashem, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and the Righteous Among the Nations Some images in this video are illustrative reconstructions, not archival photographs. Did someone in your family serve in the OSS or the French Resistance? Tell us in the comments what they did. Subscribe to Under False Names for a new full documentary every week. #VirginiaHall #WW2 #SpyHistory