America's Greatest Woman Warrior

     The news media and Hollywood (I consider them almost the same!) have misnamed and misidentified so many things that are accepted by everyone today.  Take the word or name spy for example.  Hollywood has glamorized it to a point that we automatically conjure up visions of either handsome James Bond type male characters or sexy females as portrayed on various TV shows and movies, whenever the word spy is mentioned.  No doubt there are and were handsome men and beautiful women who were/are spies. But, contrary to common perception, spying is not an occupation involving sipping expensive Champaign and hanging around world's popular playgrounds dressed in finery.  Nor does spying involve constant violent action, expert knowledge of firearms and unarmed combat!  Very simply put, a spy is someone who surreptitiously steals sensitive information from one source and passes it on to someone who usually pays for the information. 
     There is nothing sexy or colorful about stealing information and selling it to someone else!  An intelligence officer does not directly get involved in obtaining that information.  An intelligence officer recruits individuals who have access to information who essentially "spy" for them when they pass on the stolen information.  Therefore, an intelligence officer, be it a CIA, FSB (former KGB), or any other, is not a spy or an "agent" as Hollywood and the news media like to call them.  He or she is an intelligence officer who recruits and uses "agents" or "spies" to gather information!  The one who does the stealing is the spy, not the intelligence officer!  That is, in short, the real world definition of a spy.  The Soviets had a policy of giving rank to their spies, probably to boost their ego.  That is why Richard Sorge was a Colonel in the GRU.
     I have, in a previous blog, made passing mention of Virginia Hall.  She is often referred to by the media and others as America's greatest female spy.  That is incorrect.  She was a warrior, not a spy.  She may have entered France secretly and operated under cover, under an assumed name, but she was not a spy.  She was not sent to France to steal information, she was sent to France to gather intelligence, and mainly to organize and conduct guerrilla warfare against the Nazis, so she was a warrior!
     Virginia Hall was born in 1906 of well to do parents, grew up in relative comfort.  She attended Radcliff College (Harvard) and Barnard College (Columbia) and then took the Foreign Service exam which she did not pass.  Her dream was to join the Foreign Service, to become an American diplomat.  She decided she needed more experience after failing the exam, so she went to Europe and studied French and German.  She then went to work as a clerk at an American Consulate in France.  She worked at several different locations in Europe, preparing herself for a Foreign Service Career.  Unfortunately, in a hunting accident, she lost her right leg below the knee.  In those days, the Foreign Service did not accept anyone who had any kind of a physical handicap, so her dream of joining the Foreign Service were dashed.  Just then the Second World War broke out.  Virginia was in Vichy France at the time, but she managed to get away and go to England.
     In England she joined the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), the British intelligence service.  The SOE, after putting her through training, immediately sent her back to Vichy France secretly with an assumed identity, to contact and organize French Resistance.  Virginia did such a good job that she became known to the German Gestapo as a "the most dangerous" and wanted "criminal."  The Gestapo did not have a photograph of her, so they circulated a sketch, a wanted poster with a code name that they gave her.  She was called "Artemis" by the Nazis.  She was also known to the Nazis as "the limping lady."
     Virginia was involved in many dangerous operations and did an outstanding job.  She returned to England and was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE).  By that time America was in the war and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was starting to operate in Europe.  Virginia left the British SOE and joined the OSS.  The OSS sent her back to France where she helped organize and train, and lead in battle, three battalions of French guerrillas.  Her heroic acts in combat are too numerous to mention all in this blog.  Suffice it to say that her activities during the war have more than enough material for several Hollywood movies!  At the end of the war, she was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.  She is the only woman in American history to have been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by the U.S. and the OBE by the UK!
     Virginia Hall transitioned into the new CIA after the war and finished her career, retiring in the 1960s.  She died in 1982.  Shortly after her death, all of the information about her war time activities were declassified both in the U.S. and UK, so it was available to the public.  Yet, aside from being mentioned in some articles, nothing was really written about her.  Finally, in 2005, a biography was written by Judith Pearson called Wolves at the Door. 
     I am both amazed and surprised that nothing more has been done about her incredible career both with the SOE and the OSS.  It would be nice, if for a change, instead of making those senseless TV shows and movies with sexy women executing karate kicks and fighting off hordes of bad guys in very improbable scenarios, a movie or a TV special was made about her. It would make for very interesting and informative show about an incredibly brave woman, Virginia Hall, America's Greatest Woman Warrior!