Virginia Hall MBE Medal Award

Virginia Hall was a wanted woman. Nonetheless, she returned to Nazi-occupied France in 1944, this time working with America’s OSS. Disguised as a French milkmaid, Hall watched German troops and evaluated potential landing sites before the D-Day invasion. She radioed intelligence reports, coordinated parachute drops of supplies, oversaw sabotage missions, and planned ambushes of German soldiers. After the war, Hall became one of the CIA’s first female operations officers.

The British made Virginia Hall a “Member of the Order of the British Empire” (MBE) for her courageous work with resistance fighters in France in 1941-42.

Learn more about Virginia Hall by visiting our Stealing Secrets gallery or by reading our Sisterhood of Spies online article.