A Woman of a Great Deal of Fucking Importance. On a biography with a somewhat similar title by Sonia Purnell.
You think James Bond is badass? Well, let me tell you about Virginia Hall. No, I did not know anything about Virginia Hall before a friend of mine lent me A Woman of No Importance. I thought she was reading Oscar Wilde’s play, but I tell you what, this is arguably a more worthwhile read than Oscar Wilde’s play (which I admittedly have yet to read myself). Why?
A play is a play is a play, ultimately. But Virginia Hall’s story is grounded from months and months of research, which uncovered new knowledge about World War II. Those in the know would probably have heard of Virginia Hall. In her younger days, she had brushed shoulders with Hemingway and Gatsby at the peak of the American literary exodus to Paris. She has had brushed shoulders with James Bond himself (or Sir Ian Fleming, that is), and if left untold, it is the tree falling in the forest — did it really happen, if there was nobody there to witness it?
The select few would have known and paid their respects, even those who had opposed her, but to the general public she had remained an anonymous figure. This is a bloody shame, because Virginia Hall is one of the most interesting characters to have ever existed, fictional or real. The title is apt to the way she was treated because of her gender, and it seems that history has also been unkind to her as to this day, she has remained an obscure figure.
The life and times of Virginia Hall, a.k.a Diane, a.k.a Marcelle
If you had grown up as a boy with Virginia Hall, she would have probably kicked your ass. She’s not the type of girl who’d keep a Barbie doll or to take ballet class, but she’d be hunting out in the woods, going horseriding and traveling alone. Unfortunately, living on the fast lane would also have almost killed her when she accidentally shot herself on the foot on a hunting trip in Turkey, which eventually forced the doctor to amputate her leg.
A chance encounter would lead her to be one of the most important figures under the hood for the Allied cause. Despite her American nationality she was recruited as part of the nascent Special Operations Executive (SOE). Virginia’s job was to recruit her own honeycomb of spies, foster the resistance and become the link man (woman) between London and the French underground whose common cause is to sabotage the Nazis and their Vichy friends. At this time, France was wallowing under the humiliating capitulation of having been steamrolled with little resistance by Nazi Germany.
But espionage then was not as mature as we know it now. Communications between London and France had to be done via radio waves with a radio that weighs a fucking ton and carried in a massive briefcase. Worst of all, the skill set for spies were rudimentary at best and there were major pitfalls in the early days of the resistance. For example, the pioneering SOE agents fell into a trap after one of their members, who landed in the wrong part of the enemy territory, leaked out the safehouse location in Villa des Bois resulting in the capture of twelve of their best agents. This was a major setback for the SOE.
Virginia was headstrong and despite Americans falling into the war, putting her identity as a hostile presence in France, she decided to continue fighting from her adopted home in Lyon. As her lieutenants, she recruited the inconspicuous Dr. Rousset, a ribald fifty year old man and Germaine, a stunning madame of a brothel with unparalleled access to high ranked German officers who often frequent her joint.
Her success was immense even in the early days that she managed to break out the agents who were arrested from the Villa des Bois debacle, build a tremendous network of spies all around occupied France and carry out niggling but important acts of sabotage against the Nazis. But her success did not go unnoticed and the powers that be wanted her head on a silver platter. The nets are drawing tight around her, and she would make mistakes. When she met the enigmatic the amorphous Alesch, the first domino in the line would start to fall.
When the tall poppy hit her head on the glass ceiling
Did I mention how badass Virginia Hall was? Yeah well, she’s pretty fucking badass. Yet, it was not until 1988 that she was posthumously included to the CIA’s Military Intelligence Corps Hall of Fame. The CIA would also name a building after her in 2016, perhaps something that should have been done while she was still present in this side of living. But Virginia Hall is important in more ways than just winning the war for the Allied cause, she was also winning the war for women.
We live in a world now where women have more privileges and enjoy more equality, but it hadn’t always been like that. Men would deem her incompetent, and giving more important jobs and roles to other incompetent men instead. This is exemplified with her strained relationship with her compatriot Alain, a man who’d blow his own steam and getting HQ to sniff his shit and getting them to ask for more. Alain would squander money on loose women (who were not his wife), make up numbers of recruits to the thousands (when he only had half a dozen) and try to brush off Virginia (who was actually doing something with her life).
Yet Baker Street would entrust him with the most important missions which he would have trouble carrying out, much to Virginia’s dismay. This was not the only time that she was sidelined because of her gender. When she returned to France to finish off her job, the resistance leaders in Haute Loire had their reservations of her capabilities, to the point that it caused frictions to other parts of the resistance who would undermine her mission and operate independently from her, though they were enjoying her resources.
Virginia’s courage cannot be undermined, as she was adamant and immovable even when she knew the Gestapo were hot on her trail. She still nursed injured operators back to health in her own residence, even with the full knowledge that is she was ever caught, the very network that she painstakingly set out would implode in an instant. In the end, a slight mistake and an error of judgement of her part would decimate this very network, but not before she had made a reputation for herself to the Gestapo rottweilers.
The British kingdom for radio and a fucking soap
I probably won’t survive long under occupied France. I doubt I can survive a couple of days in the resistance. You know what was Virginia’s most sought after necessity to the point that she had to ask headquarters for this item? It was soap. Plain and simple soap. A lot of things were in short supply that we take for granted every day — soap was in such short supply that most French people developed skin diseases such as scabbies.
It didn’t help that Virginia had to move around between cities as a faux New York Times correspondent and the good trains had been taken by the Nazi authorities, leaving the old trains to the rest of the population, packed like sardines in their journeys between cities. This propagated the diseases, combined with malnourishment, the French were prime to contract any infectious maladies that come their way. It is a situation much like 1984, where a single blade of a razor became such a luxury, which then became a necessity.
This was also a time when communications were basic as shit. Imagine a life without Instagram. Radio was the thing back then and arguably, the war was won and lost on the radio waves. Churchill and King George VI projected their voices in the radio to keep the morale of the British people, daily losing hope. But the radio signals coming in from occupied France on the enemy’s data was worth its weight in gold (which physically isn’t much because radio waves have no weight).
To fly in radio operators from England were fraught with danger, but a necessary risk. Radio operators would painstakingly signal in morse with short and long taps, relaying simple messages for hours at a time. Many of these messages would be incomprehensible given the slight difference between short and long taps. Add to this that radio detection technology is improving daily and many agents have been caught just because they were operating their radio at the wrong time.
Virginia herself studied to become a radio operator for her second tour to France. Operating these radios would also be nuisance in the countryside where there is no power. The painting of Virginia operating a radio run using literal manpower as one of her agents, Lebrat pedalled a bicycle with his hands is now immortalised. In the painting, she is calm and collected, at peace. We would know later that perhaps being under duress, being at the eye of the storm was the time when she was most at peace.
An essential read for military history buffs
No doubt almost everybody alive would have heard of Churchill, Hitler or Anne Frank. In a landmark moment such as World War II, we need heroes and villains, that’s why these names matter. But there were men and women who served that should not have gone unnoticed, but because they were the product of their time and context, their reputation had remained largely buried. Virginia Hall should be on the upper echelons of such a list.
More than a heroic figure, she should also be a warning of our own blindness due to our prejudices. Imagine the successes that the SOE would have had if she had been given the keys instead of the limpid Alain. Though Virginia was one of the most successful agents in World War II, much of her potential remained wasted. But for Virginia Hall, it never really mattered. What mattered was that she served the people and country which she loved and that her obscure but intense life had given her great purpose.
