Virginia Hall

Virginia Hall was born in Baltimore, Maryland on April 6, 1906. Known as the "Limping Lady" by the Germans for her artificial leg named Cuthbert, Hall attended Radcliffe (Harvard University's college for women), Barnard (Columbia University's college for women), and graduate school at the American University in Washington D.C.

She wanted a role as a Foreign Service Officer, but due to her amputated leg, she was rejected and worked instead as an ambulance driver for the French army, and eventually operated on behalf of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS). She became the first British female agent inserted into France, and she recruited a network of loyal French citizens (codenamed HECKLER) through her job as a reporter. In August 1942, the German Gestapo began to suspect Hall as the instigator of escaped prisoners and sabotage efforts, and Hall escaped the country to preserve her safety.

Hall eventually returned to London. She was notified that she was being awarded and would have an audience with the king, but turned down these awards and chose to join the OSS. In 1944, Hall sent 37 intelligence reports, oversaw 27 drops of material for French resistance, coordinated 1,500 resistance fighters, and managed dozens of acts of sabotage against the Germans. She established the Cosne resistance in the weeks preceding D-day, and after the war was ended, she worked for the CIA until her retirement in 1966. She died at the age of 77 in July 1982.