One of the greatest spies in American history, Virginia Hall was a 20 year veteran of the OSS and CIA who willingly operated deep behind enemy lines even after her face was plastered on every wanted poster in occupied Germany. While her fellow resistance fighters and associates were being tortured to death, shot in the streets, or impaled on goddamn meat hooks (literally), this hardcore, stone-cold deep cover operative was picking her way through the countryside of occupied France with a Colt .45 and a full communications suite concealed in an ordinary-looking suitcase, looking for the next good spot to set up shop and broadcast German operations plans to Allied command in London.
She coordinated air drops of weapons, cash, and reinforcements for French Resistance agents, recruited and trained guerilla fighters, blew up bridges, derailed trains, sabotaged German installations, gathered intelligence on troop positions, and reported all of her findings back to Allied HQ. When she was done with that, she spent fifteen years working behind the Iron Curtain assisting CIA-backed resistance against the dang Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. She was made a member of the Order of the British Empire and the only woman to receive the Distinguished Service Cross (America’s second highest medal for bravery) during WWII, and turned down dozens of other honors because she didn’t want to compromise her anonymity so she could keep doing undercover operations for the CIA.
Oh, right – and she did it all with a wooden leg she named ‘Cuthbert’.
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=7164420669
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