This inappropriately titled, extensively researched new biography of the one-legged Virginia Hall documents her extraordinary feats of bravery and determination as an undercover agent in the French Resistance during World War 2, as an agent of Churchill’s Special Operations Executive and the American Office of Strategic Services. Seemingly addicted to risky endeavours, she worked after the war as an agent of the of Central Intelligence Agency after having done more than any other woman in history to ensure an Allied victory in France. Working in a world dominated by male chauvinists, she never received the recognition that she clearly deserved. Even the awarding to her of the French Legion of Honour, the British Order of the British Empire and the American Distinguished Service Cross were low-key unpublicized events, soon forgotten.
Many of her accomplishments were made possible by refusing to be squeamish about such techniques as using a madam and her girls to deliberately extract information from Nazi soldiers, and to ensure they got syphilis or gonorrhoea, and to get them addicted to heroin. Her own drive to ensure an Allied victory was powered by extensive use of Benzedrine.
For those of us who are geographically challenged Purnell provided a very helpful map of the relevant areas of France. There is also a useful list of some of the various operatives with their aliases and code names. Even so, I had some difficulty in keeping all the people and names straight.
The intrigue and double-crossing of the undercover world is on vivid display- her work was compromised by a mercenary double agent posing as a devout Catholic priest who passed her plans and secrets on to the Nazis. After documenting the savagery of Klaus Barbie, the Nazi ‘butcher of Lyon’ she was dismayed by the CIA’s insistence on providing him with protection and escape to Bolivia after the war. She apparently had no qualms about providing tons of money on behalf of the CIA to influence the outcome of the 1948 Italian election- foreign powers trying to influence sovereign state’s elections is obviously not a new phenomenon.
As must be true of any biography written long after the death of the subject, some speculation is required in attributing motives and emotions, but these all seem to be cohesive and in keeping with the known characteristics of the subject here.
The geographic details and the real horrors of wartime France documented here reminded me of the fictionalized account of similar circumstances in Kristen Hannah’s The Nightingale.
This is a very educational and engaging documentation of a unsung hero that deserves more recognition than she ever got in her lifetime, although she apparently humbly at one point referred to herself as a woman of no importance.
The Passionate Reader 