Now, let's talk about a hero of WWII! Virginia Hall was an American woman who wanted to work in Europe, specifically France, to help the French Resistance stop the Nazis from taking over. Unfortunately, two things - she was a woman, and they only allowed women to type, and she shot her own leg off while hanging out with friends in Turkey. Well, if the US didn't want her, the Brits would take her - Virginia joined the SOE (spies!) and spent 15 months in France, messing with the Nazis, getting a huge group of supporters together -- and sharing everything with the UK! Until she had to walk over a mountain range in the winter with her fake leg! Don't worry, as soon as she could, she switched to the OSS and went BACK to France! Learn about our hero, the Limping Lady of Lyon, Virginia Hall - with us today!
Now, let's talk about a hero of WWII! Virginia Hall was an American woman who wanted to work in Europe, specifically France, to help the French Resistance stop the Nazis from taking over. Unfortunately, two things - she was a woman, and they only allowed women to type, and she shot her own leg off while hanging out with friends in Turkey.
Well, if the US didn't want her, the Brits would take her - Virginia joined the SOE (spies!) and spent 15 months in France, messing with the Nazis, getting a huge group of supporters together -- and sharing everything with the UK! Until she had to walk over a mountain range in the winter with her fake leg! Don't worry, as soon as she could, she switched to the OSS and went BACK to France!
Learn about our hero, the Limping Lady of Lyon, Virginia Hall - with us today!
Source
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
By Sonia Purnell
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/a-woman-of-no-importance-the-untold-story-of-the-american-spy-who-helped-win-world-war-ii_sonia-purnell/19683753/#edition=20899604&idiq=42316009
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Girl Scout season is officially done. You're relieved, aren't you
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Oriental James Simpson, case number BA097.
>> Farz: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Rich banter is being captured. Taylor. Hi. How are you?
>> Taylor: Good. How are you? Good.
>> Farz: Are you wearing a hockey, like a Stars. Dallas Stars.
>> Taylor: No sweater. Could you imagine if I knew that the Dallas Stars were a hockey team? I just know it's got, like, a big tiger on it.
>> Farz: okay.
>> Taylor: A big pink tiger.
>> Farz: I like it. It's very you.
>> Taylor: Thank you. Thank, you.
>> Farz: How's, your weekend been?
>> Taylor: good. Girl Scout season is officially done. We sold all of our cookies as a troop, and I'm very excited not to have to do that anymore.
>> Farz: You're relieved, aren't you?
>> Taylor: I am. it's good.
>> Farz: It's going to be a supportive pair, but, you know, it's good that things end, too, you know?
>> Taylor: Yeah, exactly. We had two softball games. So far, we lost both of them. But that's okay because we're trying really hard.
>> Farz: It's about the fact that you tried.
>> Taylor: Exactly.
>> Farz: Secret. Yeah. sweet.
>> Taylor: Cool.
Taylor says planes are falling out of the sky left and right
Well, hello. Welcome to Doom to Veil. We bring you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures. I am Taylor, joined as always, by fars.
>> Farz: Yes, I'm here as well. That's the voice that you hear opposite Taylor every day.
>> Taylor: And how was your weekend?
>> Farz: First, it was good. I was, doing south by Southwest stuff, and my brother. Yeah, it just ended. I guess today's the last day. so, yeah, Austin's going to go back to normal briefly. Very, very briefly. Because my trip season is starting, and so the routine is going to get thrown for a world again.
>> Taylor: Your trip season?
>> Farz: Yeah, I got to do my show. I got to go to Canada a couple of times. I got to do DC trips, stuff like that.
>> Taylor: Cool.
>> Farz: Yeah, it's great when you're 40 and your back hurts. It's awesome.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: planes are falling out of the sky left and right. It's awesome.
>> Taylor: They haven't in a while.
>> Farz: Do you think they haven't in a while, or do you think big airline got to the news and was like, stop reporting this?
>> Taylor: I feel like we would know if it, like, I don't know. I mean, there's. It is hard to capture all of the bad things that are happening in a new cycle. So I guess it could be.
>> Farz: Yeah. Hopefully that stops occurring right as I start flying a lot more, so. Nice.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Good for you.
>> Farz: sweet.
This week I'm talking about an amazing woman from World War II
Well, I think today's a you start us day.
>> Taylor: It Is sweet. I am ready. it is still Women's History month. Will it be next week? Yes. Will it be the week after that? Yeah. Okay. Maybe I'll do two more anyway. Today. Yeah. Well, last time I talked about a piece of crap woman from World War II, and so did you.
>> Farz: Yeah. Weird, right?
>> Taylor: Too bad he is too real.
>> Farz: We didn't even coordinate that, people. That was like, just total happenstance. So we did that.
>> Taylor: and this week I'm gonna talk about a really freaking amazing woman from World War II that you probably had not have not heard of. because a lot of her stuff is secret because she was a spy.
>> Farz: Oh, damn. Okay. I thought it was like the white roses or something, but I guess not.
>> Taylor: no, I'll talk about them eventually. I know you. You said you did that too, right? You researched it a little bit.
>> Farz: I realized it was like a huge, huge topic. And it was like one of those things where you gotta, like, plan like, several weeks in advance for it. So.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I think one of us should do it. It is cool.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: but no, I'm talking about an American woman who, did a lot of awesome stuff during World War II. And again and again, things were hard for her because she was a woman and people, like, didn't think she could do it. And also, she was disabled. She only had one leg. She had a fake leg on one of her legs. And so the fact that she did all she did is really remarkable. And I'll tell you about that. But it's hard to get everything that she did because she was a spy. So a lot of it we'll never know, but it's really cool.
Virginia Hall was born in 1906 in Baltimore, Maryland
So I'm going to tell you about Virginia Hall. That's her name.
>> Farz: Fun.
>> Taylor: So Virginia hall was born on April 6, 1906, in Baltimore, Maryland. So her mother had married her boss and, like, had a really nice life and was like, this is the thing to do. The thing to do is to, like, find an old rich man and marry him. Yeah. Which is not bad advice.
>> Farz: Figured that out.
>> Taylor: Yeah. There's. There's worst advice you can get from someone.
>> Farz: Absolutely.
>> Taylor: So she. Her mom wanted the same thing for. For poor Virginia. She was basically like, why don't you find someone nice to marry? And then, you know, you'll be able to have a lot of money and be sett. Virginia had older brother and that was like, you know, kind of went off and was a business person, but she really didn't want to do that. That was not something that Virginia would have, like, Just easily done. She loves to travel. She loved to do things like boy things with her dad, like hunt and fish and spend time in the wilderness. And so she really didn't want to do the things that her mom wanted her to do. She wanted to do like a little bit. A little bit different. She went to Radcliffe, like Helen keller, but like 20 years later, and then Barnard, and then she went to college in Europe to kind of finish her. Finish her college years. So they were like, kind of like, like the middle class that you can be where you can send your kids to scholars in Europe.
>> Farz: That's pretty upper.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that's what I mean. Like upper, I think. So she went to Europe and she traveled. She learned five languages. She's super smart. She spoke Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, and English and German. No. Did she speak German? Maybe she didn't speak German, which is weird. She spoke Spanish, Italian, Russian, French and English. Whatever. She learned a lot of languages. She probably spoke some German and she, loved.
>> Farz: You ever see that one meme where it's like, what's one thing that if a poor person does it, it's trashy, but if a rich person does it, it's classy, knowing a lot of languages?
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
>> Farz: Continue.
>> Taylor: Exactly. So she loved being in Europe, except, you know, she could see that there was something rumbling like fascism starting, and she was trying to figure out what to do with her life. She got engaged a few times, kind of like dated around, but she didn't. She didn't, end up getting married while. While she was like, in her 20s in the stock market crash in the U.S. her dad lost all of his money and he ended up dying of a heart attack at age 59. So now her mom was even more like, girl, you got to come home and get married to someone rich. You know, we need, we need you as a family. But she said no to that. And she went back to Europe and she got a job with the US State Department in Warsaw. And she kind of had a lot of these jobs that she's going to get are, like secretary jobs, which is like, a totally fine job to have, but not what she wanted. And she wasn't able to get any other jobs. Like, they wouldn't promote her. They wouldn't do other things because she was a woman.
>> Farz: Also, fun fact coming from someone who's, like, older at this point. Take the shitty job. Take the shitty job and then prove yourself once you get in the building, then get the job you want. That's how you do it. You don't just, like, sign up one day. It's like, I want to be the boss. Like, it doesn't work.
>> Taylor: Totally, Totally, totally. So she. When she was 27, she got re. She got a new, like, moved jobs, but stayed in the State Department. Moved, to turkey. So it's 1933, and she likes it in Turkey better than she liked Warsaw. She's in a spot that has, like, a lot of, like, nature, and she makes a bunch of friends, and they're able to go and, just kind of have a good time, even though she still has a secretary job that she doesn't really love. So with her friends, they go out hunting, and she has a gun that her dad had given her when she was little, and she took it with her to Europe, because you could just like, take your gun to Europe.
>> Farz: Before 9 11, things were different.
>> Taylor: so her and her friends are out shooting birds like you do, and they're, like, in this, like, swampy marshland area, and Virginia is running to catch a bird, and there's a fence, and she's climbing over the fence, and her gun gets kind of stuck in her coat, and she accidentally shoots herself in the leg. So before this, she had two legs, but now she's 27, and she's in Turkey, and she just shot herself in the leg. The doctor that she goes to, they are like, we think we can save it. We're gonna try. And by the time that the American doctors got there to help her, her foot had gangrened, and they had to cut it off below the knee. So that's how she became an amputee. She shot herself in the fight, which.
>> Farz: Kind of makes her more qualified for a lot of things, I think, because, like, if you can go through that, then you can go through a lot.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. And so she was obviously devastated because, like, she. And, she went home, and her mom was like, this is time to stay home now. Like, this is. You can't go back. But she really wanted to go back. And she got a fake leg put on. So she would always would walk with a little bit of a limp. But also, it's like, a horror.
An amputee tries to join the foreign services as a diplomat
It's not, like, a nice 20, 25 fake leg. It is a terrible, 1930 fake leg that is, like, hollow metal. It's, like, attached to her. Her, like, knee stub with, like, straps that attach to a corset around her waist. So it's, like, super uncomfortable. It hurts. It bleeds all the time. It's just, like, absolutely awful.
>> Farz: It's like, barely better than, like, a pirate's.
>> Taylor: Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. And she calls it Cuthbert. She names it Cuthbert. Her little thick leg. So she tries to join the foreign services as a diplomat, which is hard for women to do anyway because, like, they didn't really want women to do that, but she couldn't because she was an amputee. And the state, the, State Department, not the State Department. The Foreign service department doesn't allow people, with disabilities to join, which is. Is, you know, interesting because her plea to join got all the way to fdr, but FDR said no from his wheelchair that she could.
>> Farz: That is a little bit of irony.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So she's like, fuck this. I want to do something more than this. Like, I don't want to just sit around, like, transcribing, like, memos all day long in. As a secretary here. I can do more. I know I can do more, despite my disability, obviously. Like, I can do more. So she quits working for the United States and joins, up with France as an ambulance driver because they. She's. She can drive. She speaks French, and they don't even ask her about her leg because who cares? She can drive. You know, so it's.
>> Farz: Those are left leg she lost, actually.
>> Taylor: Don't know. Okay, but either way, I mean, if.
>> Farz: She starts driving with her, I mean.
>> Taylor: I think you'd figure it out pretty fast.
>> Farz: I, guess so. If you only had. Yeah, okay, fine, fine.
>> Taylor: You know, but either way, also, sorry, I'm not.
>> Farz: I'm not trying to belabor this, but back then, weren't cars manuals?
>> Taylor: maybe. But she can still move her legs.
>> Farz: Oh, that's right. She's still moving. It's just, like, you know.
>> Taylor: Okay, yeah, she has her. She has her fake leg, and it's just like, it sucks and it hurts, but she can move it, so she can definitely drive.
>> Farz: Oddly enough, she was qualified for a lot of jobs. More than this that they could have just given her, but.
>> Taylor: Yes, totally. Exactly. But she gets this job, and she likes it. France is being occupied slowly by the Germans, and, they needed her to be in there.
Virginia worked for the New York Post during World War II
So this is where fate steps in for our dear Virginia. She's almost 30, she's living in France as an ambulance driver, and she's going to Spain to visit some friends. She can travel pretty easily because she's American, and, like, America hasn't joined the war yet. People are still kind of pretending that things are okay, even though things are, like, not okay and, like, getting worse. And she's on her way to Spain, and she's on the train and she meets a man named George Bellows, who happens to be a British intelligence officer. And he, likes her right away. She's smart, she's funny, she's pretty, she's. And she is an American. Like I just said, she can move back and forth really easily. And he's like, you know what? We can get you a better job than the job that you have. Like, we can absolutely use you in, in, in England. So he gives her a phone number and says, this is the friend. Call this. Call this number and they'll help you get a job. And so she had tried to, like, find other jobs, and she couldn't really find one that she liked. So she decides to call the number, and it goes to a man named Nicholas Boddington, who is the man who started the Special Operations Executive, which is called the soe, which is a brand new spy group coming out of England. It's different than MI6 and, like, different ways, but it's very, very, very, very similar. And she's like James Bond spy style now.
>> Farz: So this would have been like late 30s. Yeah, early 40s. Okay.
>> Taylor: Late 30s. Yeah, yeah. So she gets the job. And also, you know, they didn't want to let her in because of, you know, she's a woman and all the things. But, like, this is a job that, like, a lot of people, I didn't know how to do, and they didn't know what was going to happen. So it could. It was so dangerous to even, like, think of being a spy for the British in World War II that a lot of people didn't do it. So, like, she was one of the few applicants. She was very qualified, you know, super smart, spoke of languages, all the things. She has to go through fun training. Like, they interrogate her in German and, like, try to scare her. Like they're the Gestapo and they do all these things. She learns how to do things like hide papers in various holes in her body.
>> Taylor: I wrote training was intense, and she learned how to put papers in her butthole. and so it was assumed that, like, she would, she would go into France, maybe get a little bit of information from, you know, what was going on on the ground in France, if there was any resistance, things like that. And it was assumed that she probably wasn't going to make it back by, like, her superiors. They didn't tell her that, but that was, like, the idea. They didn't think that she would be able to.
>> Farz: Was it The Vietnam War, where they just, like, were printing purple medals left and right. So it's like, we're assuming they're going to give away, like, a million of these things.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah. So she has to get into France, and she's able to get in by pretending to be a reporter for the New York Post. And the New York Post did give her a job. So she had, like, a legit job that was, like, through soe, but if you follow the paper trail, she worked for the New York Post, and she is, largely on her own. So they kind of were like, go and see what you could find out. And she would communicate back to England by, like, coded postcards and buy her, her articles that were in the New York Post. They would have, like, things in there about birds that meant this was happening or people were moving and things like that. she spent 50 is going to spend 15 months in France, creating, like, a huge resistance network. And London called it the heckler circuit. So she was really going in and, like, changing things. So I'm going to tell you what she did while she was there. she goes to Lyon, which is, like, a city in France. And when she gets there, she's like. They give her money and are like, good luck, you know. So she, like, walks around parts of France for a while, travels around, finally gets to Leon. She doesn't have any where to stay. She can't find a hotel room. She ends up going to finding a convent, like, the top of a hill and being like, can you please help me? And they let her in, and those nuns become, like, a big, real important part of her spy group. Just like the nuns in Sound of Music.
>> Farz: That's really fun. I, keep entering this stuff. I don't know why. It's just always, like, baguettes are everywhere and, like, everybody's having a great time, but they're probably not because they're being tortured and watching hell unfold in front of them.
>> Taylor: Yeah, it's not great. And so actually, so other things that she does while she's there, like, I just wanted to mention that she learns how to change her appearance and, like, blend in like a spy movie, which is also really, really fun. but she's in Lyon, and, yeah, to that point, it's not. Things aren't going well. World War I just ended, you know, like, barely. And people aren't, like, prosperous in France. It's not great in France either. You know, I was talking about how, like, Europe is doing great. They just had a war now they're about to have another one.
>> Farz: I know. I keep picturing, like, the countryside of Leon, France.
>> Taylor: I'm sure it's like. Yeah. I mean, yeah, this is like, mountains and all that stuff.
>> Farz: You really need, like, a lot of, like, really rich things when you could just have great milk and great baguettes.
>> Taylor: Yeah, but, like, who. Who are you? Who's that who you're saying that to? France.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, they're going through a lot.
>> Taylor: They're going through a lot. I think that they're.
>> Farz: I keep romanticizing this era for some reason.
>> Taylor: Yeah. No, I don't know why I think that, like, even. I think that, like, being a peasant farmer in. Is like being a peasant farmer again, you know, like, it's not good.
Bad things are happening all over Europe as well. Nazis taking over France slowly
You know, it's not. It's not going to be. People are kind of don't know what to do. and you can know that, like, things. Bad things are happening all over Europe as well. You can, like, you know, Hitler's in charge now, so they know these things are happening. so she also meets some other people to be a part of her spy ring. One cool character is a woman named Germain Garon, and she was a madame at a brothel. And she would always, like, do things like hide Jewish people in her house and, like, in her brothel so that obviously they couldn't get taken away. And her. The sex workers who worked for her would do, like, super awesome things. Like they had a doctor that was part of the group who would say, like, oh, yeah, none of These girls have STDs. Everything's fine. When they definitely did. And they would, like, give the Germans STDs. Oh.
>> Farz: I was like, that's not good health.
>> Taylor: Care for the women. No, no, no. It was for. It was to, like, infiltrate with the Nazis and, like, do stuff to. To hurt them. They would, drug them. Like, the. The Nazis that would come to the brothel, they would drug them and then, like, take pictures of what was in their pockets after they had fallen asleep. They would. While. If. If they fell asleep, they would drip poison in their eyeballs so that their vision would be impaired. They wouldn't be able to do pilots anymore. Isn't that awesome? I know. because, like, the gishapo is everywhere now. Charles de Gaulle, like, the airport, he is in the UK and trying to start the Resistance. But, like, Nazis are taking over France, like, very, very slowly. and France is like, sure, just don't hurt us. So a lot of, like, the local governments are, like, would report you to The Gestapo, if something happened, because they're like, we just need to, like, not piss them off. Yeah, what's happened? So she. England is like, okay, this is working. She has getting a network. Things are happening. So they decided to send more people from the SOE into France. And they do things like they just drop people out of planes and hope for the best. So they parachute, like, into a random field, like, with their radio, hoping that they don't get. Get caught. But a lot of them do get caught when they just, like, land in a random field or, like, the middle of a random town. Like, you never know where they're going to be. And the ones who are radio operators, they're the ones who are really, really in demand, because if you have a radio, you can, like, Morse code back to England and let them know what's happening. But they're trying. So a lot of these guys are trying to get to Virginia, but, like, don't know where exactly where she is. When they get dropped off, like, in the middle of the night, she, At some point, there's like 17 or so other SOE agents in France, and they decide to meet up at a safe. A safe house, because, like, they're also very lonely. Like, that's part of it, too, that. Oh, I read a book called the Woman of no Importance that I'll share. But, like, you know, it's a lonely job. And it's weird because you always have to be looking over your shoulder and, like, you're making friends and, like, trying to, like, you know, judge if people are safe to talk to. And, like, you're always working. and so a bunch of agents decided to meet up in. At a house in Marseille, and they get found by the Gestapo, like, immediately. So one of the guys that had been, captured right when he landed, like, in his parachute had a map to the safe house in his pocket, which is really stupid of the SOE to do that. And so these 17 other agents get arrested immediately. and Virginia was supposed to go, but she had a weird feeling and didn't go, which was, like, the right thing to do, to not. Not attend that party. and then. Let's put a pin in that. We'll talk about those guys in a little bit later.
She knows Nazis are taking food to Germany while the French people are starving
So she's working for the soe. She's living in Lyon. And what does she do all day? She fights Nazis all day. That's what she does. She knows the Nazis are taking food to Germany while the French people are starving. That's. That's it. That's the thing too, as well. The Germans are stealing the food. and she would do stuff, like, in packages of meat, put, like, one rotten piece of meat in it, so it would make it all rotten. And they would, like, put water in cereal. They would, poke holes in tin cans, add salt to sugar, like, things like that. Just, like, make the food that they were bringing over to Germany worthless as well. she would walk around. She would walk around meeting people in cafes, but to get there, she'd have to take, like, 17 lefts and a right and, like, climb over the thing and like, just really, like, people couldn't follow her. They couldn't really know who she was. So she did a lot of, like, secret spy stuff, which is super scary because, again, like, around every corner there's, like, a German yelling. You can imagine, like, in. In these. In these towns. So there are a couple men that are sent to be her boss, but they aren't as good as her. Like, she's just better at it than they are. So she's sort of unofficially in charge of this area. They never actually make her the boss, but she's, like, better. There's a guy named, named Alon who is there as well. And he, like, literally lies and says he has thousands of people on his team and he doesn't, you know, so she's definitely, like, way better than anyone else at doing this. So a couple of fun stories from her 15 months in Lyon. There was one person who. Another SAO agent who was in jail, and she gave him tablets to m. Make him sick. And then he got sent to a hospital and had surgery, like, unnecessary surgery on his stomach because he didn't really have a stomach problem by a doctor who was in her. In her group. He did, like, the most minimal surgery that he could, but he actually did it. And then while he's in the hospital, a nurse, helped him escape out a window. So, like, she was doing stuff like that. everybody had, like, cyanide pills in their mouths, like, at all times. Like, pills that you could, like, swallow, and then, like, you wouldn't die, but if you bit it, you would die. So they had, like, all kinds of stuff like that. Like, with them at all times. people really needed soap. That was a big thing as well. that. That people, everybody was like, super dirty because if you get parachuted into the middle of France, you don't have. You don't have anywhere to go, you know, so people were kind of just walking around. at some point, the Nazis start to Figure out that there is someone in Lyon who is running this, like, spy network. But they don't have any idea that it's a woman. And they would. They were like. They just obviously just assumed that it was a man. She finally got a radio operator, but he had been parachuted 150 miles from where she was. So he was, like, dropped at the wrong spot. And he walked around France for a month until he found her. Like, he didn't. And he couldn't, like, ask for her. He just had to, like, walk around and, like, figure it out. He, ended up finding a radio that someone else had hidden and was able to then start sending messages back to England. And that was really, really helpful. even though they have the radio and they're doing like the. I mean, obviously it's sending the mail takes forever. But the Morse code message, if you sent it to England, you would expect about like an hour and a half before they could write back to you. Because they had to, like, re. Like, first they had to convert the Morse code into words. And then it was obviously encode on top of that code. So it's like decode it. And then they had to write something to you and then recode it and then Morse code it back to you. So it took a while.
>> Farz: I still use Google Maps to go to my neighborhood grocery store.
>> Taylor: Yeah, No, I could not find you if they drop if you were.
>> Farz: No.
>> Taylor: Okay. So basically these dudes are just like, falling out of the sky trying to find her in France so that she can help them, like, do other things. She had, like, a flower pot on her windowsill that she would move around to be like, I'm, available. I'm not available. Things like that. it wasn't always, like, it was fun, obviously, like, to think about, but also obviously super dangerous. She would. Her and most of the spies were also on a lot of drugs, like uppers and downers. Because sometimes she had to be awake for days at a time, like helping people, like, move things and do things. Sometimes she would, like, you know, have to sleep, things like that. so remember her friends that were taken that all went. Me and her friends, like the other SOE guys who were all taken at that house. So now she wants to get them out of jail. And when I say jail, I mean they're in like, a concentration camp and sort of. And they are very, very malnourished. They have. They, you know, they can't really run out of jail. Even if she, like, got the door open, you know, they need to be able to, like, get more, you know, get m. Get stronger. They ended up getting moved out of, like, the concentration. The, you know, collection concentration camp that they were in and moved to a present, like, an actual prison where they're able to, like, kind of put on some weight and, like, start to, like, be human again. And then she starts to try to get them out. So she has people going in to visit them and doing things like, you know, putting a file in a book and hiding it. And, like, piece by piece, they're able to get the guys enough stuff so that they can start working, on how to get out. They need to make a key. So they, like, take the key and they make a mold in bread and then, like, melt stuff down and make the key so that they can, like, get real.
>> Farz: I thought that was, like, a Looney Tunes thing.
Virginia worked out a way to get out of Nazi jail undetected
>> Taylor: I know it's real. So they need to go out. They got a guard to help them. So a lot of this. A lot of people are, like, you know, secretly part of the resistance. So a guard is going to help them. They have to run in two stages from, like, their cell to a guard tower and then out through barbed wire fences to, like, actually get out. And it was a whole. It had to be super fast when they got out. So they did things like they painted a door on a piece of cloth to hang over the door so that it looked like the door was closed. I guess their door wouldn't stay closed, so they wanted to make. Made it so you couldn't easily tell that they were gone. The way that Virginia worked it out is that if, like, an old lady walked past the jail at night, then it was good. If it had been a man, it would have been a no. So it was, like, little secret things like that. And they put a sleeping potion on one of the guards or whatever, somehow got the guard to pass out. And then another guard that was supposed to help them, he ended up, like, chickening out. So another guard, like, there was a signal where he, like, lit a cigarette, and that was a signal for the guys to run. So they run and they're doing, like. They're making a lot of noise. And while they're doing running and making a lot of noise, another guard that they didn't know that wasn't in cahoots with them stopped them. And they're like, oh, my God. And he goes, is this the English? Stop making so much noise. So, like, all the guards were trying to help them get out, you know? So, it took him 12, 12 minutes, but they got out. And then while they. After they left, like, someone else in the jail cleaned everything up, so you couldn't really tell how they had gotten out. And, like, one of the wives who had been bringing them stuff, like, she was out of town, so she had an alibi, all the things. they sent information over their waves that the men were back in England, so that's where the Germans thought that they were, but they actually were just in a cabin in the woods in France, and they ended up getting better and getting out. So that was super fun. she didn't say that it was her that did it, but everyone knew that, like, she was the one who had done all the stuff for them. A lot of her stuff was being like, don't talk about it, obviously, because she's a spy.
>> Farz: I would so talk about it. I would tell everyone I know, but you know what I just did?
>> Taylor: It was the coolest ever. I know she doesn't tell anyone, which is a bummer. I wish. I wish she would have written a book. And she did not. Like, that's kind of her. Her story. so, okay, so now the Germans know that she's there. They know she's a woman, like, somehow. and they call her the Limping lady of Lyon, but they can't find her. And I kind of feel like I could find a limping person, but that's.
>> Farz: Just me just walk around and kick everyone in the shins and. The one that doesn't Yelp.
>> Taylor: Yeah, exactly. I just trip a bunch of women until you find her. but they don't. They know she's there, but they can't find her. she also did, you know, make friends with people that she shouldn't have trusted. there is one man who. His name is Robert Alesh, and he is a German spy. He came in as a priest, and, like, he had a German accent, but he said he was from, like, you know, just from the border between France and Germany. And a lot of people were suspicious of him, but they let him in and they trusted him, even though they thought he was weird. And that was just, like, a huge mistake. And a lot of people died because of the stuff that he had told the Nazis. at the end of the war, he will eventually be executed in Paris. but it didn't come soon enough. He did some stuff up for her. so now she has to leave France because it is. There's no neutral zone. She's basically been in the unoccupied zone this entire time. Not in, like, Paris, where the Germans have, like, actually taken over. So now France has totally fallen to the Nazis and she has to. And she has to leave. But she can't just leave because now they know they're waiting, like, at the train stations, obviously, for this woman to leave. They're trying to figure out how, to get her out. And she decides to go to Spain on foot. So she walks over the Pyrenees mountains with a guide in the winter. So it's snowing.
>> Farz: With one leg.
>> Taylor: With one leg. It's a 7,500ft, like, elevation climb. And then 50 miles they walk in just two days. and, like, her leg is, like, bleeding. And, like, people she's with don't know that she has a fake, ah, leg. She just, like, goes. She said before she left, she sent a telegram or sent, like, a message to England and said, that Cuthbert is being tiresome because obviously, like, her leg hurts and is bleeding and awful. And the person who got that message didn't know that she called her fake leg Cuthbert. And she wrote back and said, if Cuthbert. They wrote back, if Cuthbert is troublesome, eliminate him.
>> Farz: What, like the head of a spy.
>> Taylor: Agency would say, yes, exactly. Exactly. So she does escape, she walks over the mountains and she goes to Spain and she gets another desk job because, like, even through this, they don't get one. Give her a good job, which is super annoying. But they're also, I think, fairly like, you've been compromised. They know who you are. They're looking for you, you know, so you cannot go back to France as part of the soe. There's just no way.
She goes through radio operator school to become a radio operator
So she is like, well, fuck that. I need, to go back to France. Like, my whole thing is, like, liberating France from the Nazis. It's all I want to do. Let me go back. They won't let her go back. She's like, what if I'm a radio operator? You need radio operators? They're like, no. She's like, fine. So she puts herself through radio operator school and learns how to be a radio operator. Now she's like, I am so valuable right now. I know all these people. I speak French. I can do the radio now. Like, let me back in. And SOE says no. And so she joins the oss, which is the American version of it. So they finally let her in to the American side and they. They said they're fine with it. They're like, you can go to France. Great. Go. So she goes back to France to prep for D day. So what she does when she goes back is obviously they're looking for her. They. They know there's this limping spy woman. So she makes herself look old. She'll like draw on wrinkles every day. She dyes her hair gray. She learns to walk differently, so she doesn't have a limp anymore. She has like a shuffle. And she looks like an 80 year old woman, even though she's like 35. And she dresses like a peasant and she has her teeth filed down so that she looks like a peasant.
>> Farz: Also there's like just like hang out and retire.
>> Taylor: Like, I just really wanted to do this man. And she. So another thing that is fun is like the people who were spying, like in Inglourious Basterds, when that guy does the three the wrong way.
>> Farz: Oh, yeah.
>> Taylor: And then it was a spy, you know, like I knew immediately because I've been to Germany and I know that's how you do a three. Like, I was very like, yes. Like. So the stuff like that, that, like the way that your buttons are sewn on, there's a French way and then there's a German way. So you have to like, make sure you're doing it the right way. You have a spy just like know so many of these, like little tiny things, which is like, you wouldn't think of it. Some people get caught as spies because they do stupid. Like they, you know, do the number three the wrong way and then you can tell that you're not French. Like you're not who you say you are. So she does all this stuff. She actually becomes a farmer. She has a cow. She sells produce. At one point she sells cheese that she made to the Nazis. Hopefully she poisoned it. I don't know if she did, but hopefully she did. But like, but like, so she's actually doing that. And her American counterpoint counterpart at this time I wrote he was kind of a boob. There's like a good handful of boobs around. Just like guys who just like, don't help.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: but she is. She gets her radio to work by getting a farm boy to ride a bike and like start a generator. So, like, I'll do a generator, then she can have her radio work. And the radios aren't like iPhones. The radios are like 40 pound boxes. And you have to have this, like the antenna, you have to like strap it to the top of a house. So it's not easy.
>> Farz: Yeah. It's also something that if you knew what you're looking for, you would know what they were doing in there.
>> Taylor: Exactly. One cool way that they would find the radio operators is the Germans would, in, in bigger cities, shut down the electricity block by block while listening to the radio transmission. So when the radio transmission stopped, they knew that was the block that had the radio.
>> Farz: Oh, that's pretty smart.
>> Taylor: Isn't that smart and interesting? So then. Then. Then they would raid that block, and a lot of people would be like, read it. And then they would, like, you know, they knew they heard it was coming, and they'd be like, oh, I'm just a regular French guy. Leave me alone. But they were, like, hiding the radio in their attic and, like, doing things like that just to make sure that they were doing it. So a little bit in her second time in France, people were a little bit like, okay, is this lady legit? She's, like, trying to get us to join her resistance. Like, is she really from the oss? Is she really from America? Like, what is happening? and then finally, she gets some planes to come and bring them supplies. And this is super cool. So they make a Runway in, like, a field out of burning sticks. Like in Die Hard to.
>> Farz: Don't remember that in here too.
>> Taylor: He does that. He, like, makes it out of the, like, a gas streak from a plane that had already crashed because of the. It's. It's very complicated airport story, but it's really good. You should watch it.
Virginia joins CIA to help with anti-Nazi missions during WWII
I just watched it recently. but. So they do that, and, all of a sudden, planes are coming. They do 22 drops of supplies for everybody in this area. They drop cool things like, tea and medicine and money and socks and shoes. you know, you don't have. At this point in the war, people don't have anything, you know, like, they have nothing. They are wearing shoes out of cardboard. It's, like, not good, you know. And so she's able to get all this stuff. when they would drop the containers and stuff, they would dip their wings to say hi and then fly back to England, which is cute, nice, you know? But she was able to do things like that. And with that stuff and the people that she got to join her, they would do more fun stuff against the Nazis, like derailing trains and, and stopping food from going. Things like that. Just like she was doing before. About, like a big mass. Mass scale.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: And then, remember, the KSAPO is everywhere, and they're starting to get scared, too, because the war is, like, coming to. Coming to an end, so they're getting more violent and weirder. And people are going to die. Like, a lot of her associates die. A lot of these people end up in concentration camps. There's these two like young men that she works with a lot and she like really loves them. She calls them her nephews. She loves being with them. They're brothers and they both die in Dachau. So like, this is, you know, people around her dying all the time. But Virginia is, is. Doesn't happen to her. while she's in France, she meets an OSS agent named Paul Guyot. He is, five inches shorter than her and eight years younger than her. And they fall in love. and so she's finally able to like, you know, kind of have someone to like, talk to, you know, even. And at one point he like has his friends meet her, but she is dressed like an old peasant lady. Her friends are like, what the hell's wrong with you?
>> Farz: What are you doing?
>> Taylor: Like, why are you, why are you taking this 80 year old woman? so like, and then like later after the war, when the friends saw her, they were like, whoa, like I didn't realize that you were. Not that you're a little old woman. Yeah. Such a good job. so they, the France is now Allied occupied, but the war isn't over. They're still waiting for Germany to to surrender. And so her and Paul go to Austri to start to do like anti Nazi stuff there. but then the Germans surrender and she ends up, going back to Paris, when Paris is liberated and kind of writing things down and just making like her last couple reports to the OSS. And then she resigns in in 1945. So she doesn't stay in the OSS, she leaves kind of like right away. She wants to go back to. Well, her mom wants her back in, in the United States. And by the way, this whole time her mom is like, my daughter's probably dead.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: You know, like every once in a while she'll get like a telegram from the SOE that'll be like, your daughter's doing great. She's still alive, but like, they barely know that either, you know. So her mom wants her to go back. She goes and Paul wants to open a restaurant, which he ends up doing, even though it doesn't, it doesn't turn out very well. so her mom doesn't approve of their, of them. M. Because he's younger than her. But you're like, what? And she's like 40. So like let her do whatever she wants to do. Like Terrell. So they like don't, don't live together until 1957 when they get married. they try to adopt a child that doesn't work out and they end up with a bunch of dogs they like. They like those like big brown poodles, you know what I mean? Those are their favorite. They have a bunch of those.
>> Farz: Another point, for dog lovers.
>> Taylor: I know another plus, in 1947 she joins the CIA, which is like the brand new as well. in her career people are always going to be like, but you're a woman, you can't do stuff. Even though she was like one of the most successful spies that they had in France during the war, she would stay in the CIA until she was 60. And that was when you have to retire. You can't work there, can't be older than 60 to work there. While she was in the CSA, she worked on secret paramilitary operations in France. To her model of creating resistance groups was used, was studied by other groups who were working on setting up resistance in European countries against a Soviet attack and against communism. So they were like, she was, they were following her, kind of as a role model of what she had done. later the CIA released a report about her, and said that her fellow officer, she had like a very low ranking officer, title. And her fellow officers said, quote, they felt that she had been sidelined, shunted into backwater accounts because she had so much experience that she overshadowed her male colleagues who felt threatened by her and her experience and abilities were never properly, properly utilized. So they didn't let her do, be, be a boss, even though she should have been for a bunch of different shitty reasons. she did end up with a bunch of awards. She got the Distinguished Service Cross in September 1945, from the United States. This is the only one awarded to a civilian woman in World War II. she became an official member of the Order of the British Empire, which is a big award you get in Britain. And she was awarded the Crow de Guerre, which is the something Cross, by France, which is like their highest military, one of their highest military honors as well. and she didn't tell anybody about it, about that one. And they found out later like in her papers that she'd gotten it. But like she didn't tell anybody that she had their work. She really didn't like go after any of that recognition. in 2016, just a couple more awards about her, a CIA field agent training facility was named The Virginia Hall Expeditionary center, which is fun. The CIA museum. If you go there, there are five people who have individual, like, exhibits at the museum. Four of them are men who went on to head the CIA. And one of them is Virginia. So they talk about her there. Yeah.
There's not that much, um. There's not, like, a movie about her
Which is super cool. later in life, her health, you know, was failing after probably a lot because all of the drugs that she did during, during the war, like really with her kind of forever. and she died on July 8, 1982 in Maryland, where she is buried and Paul is buried with her. He died five years later. and then after, after her death, a lot of like, the research that the person who wrote A Woman of no Importance did and that people do about her is like going in and finding things and declassifying things and trying to find, you know, notes. There's probably so much stuff that we did that she did that we don't even know about, you know.
>> Farz: Yeah, what you were saying it reminded me of. So she, she sounds like a very modest and humble person, which also just does not bode well for career advancement.
>> Taylor: Yeah, like, like that's true.
>> Farz: One of the, I mean, not. It's not a consistent argument. Like, men are more apt to like, talk about the. They do and than women are. And like, that's like a byproduct. I mean, she didn't write a book. She didn't like, Yeah, it's interesting.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Totally. And yeah, that's a good point because, like, she wasn't getting the promotions and things. And there were men who were getting them. And a lot of them, some of the examples used in the book were like, lying about what they were doing anyway. You know, they didn't have the people that they said they did and she did, but she wasn't like, advertising.
>> Farz: Isn't it like somewhere, like, if you're like the leader of an organization, you're like, dramatically higher. You have a dramatically higher percentage, likelihood of being a psychopath or something than the regular population. Probably like a narcissist or something. I forgot what it was.
>> Taylor: Yeah, definitely something. Definitely. You know, it takes a lot of other things besides doing a good job to get up to those positions.
>> Farz: Right, exactly.
>> Taylor: You know, yeah, that, that's, that's her story. And I think it's so fun that she like, walked over the mountains, you know, and did all those like, little sabotage things. Like I, ah, could just picture her like, limping around Lyon in the middle of the night, like, finding food and poking Holes in it, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah. Even now, like, I looked like. There's not that much, There's not, like, a movie about her.
>> Taylor: I know. Isn't that crazy? Do you think there should be?
>> Farz: But it's like, it sounds like they don't have any content to go off because she didn't say anything.
>> Taylor: You could figure it out. You could. You could do a whole.
>> Farz: Yeah, give it a Quentin Tarantino. He'll figure it out.
>> Taylor: Yeah. like, she was in. She was in Leon for 15 months, and she. There's a bunch of people that she met and, you know, moved in and out of her apartment and out of her world and, like, so you could, you know, you could show her meeting someone at a cafe and then climbing out a window because the Gestapo was there. Or you could see her, you know, show her people showing up at her apartment in the middle of the night, stinky and poor, and having to prove who they are to her, you know?
>> Farz: I do love a good spy movie, so I would totally be in favor of that. I think there's a new one coming out. Black Bag. Looks pretty good. very fun, Very cool. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. Thanks for sharing a woman. That is not terrible.
>> Taylor: You're welcome.
>> Farz: because I'm gonna be doing the opposite. I'm gonna be sharing one that is terrible.
>> Taylor: Great.
>> Farz: cool.
Uh, anything, uh, any listener mail? Um, I got another email from Kim requesting a sticker
anything, any listener mail?
>> Taylor: I got another email from. For a sticker, so. Thank you, Kim. I sent you your sticker. I appreciate you.
>> Farz: Very nice. Thank you. Please write in if you would like to get a sticker as well. Dot com. False on socials on Dunefl Pod. I think that's mostly it.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that's all I got.
>> Farz: Cool. All right, well, thanks for sharing.
>> Taylor: Thanks.
>> Farz: We'll go ahead and cut it off.