Famous female spy characters
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Virginia Hall
American SOE spy
For the building, see Virginia Hall (Dallas, Texas).
Virginia Hall GoillotDSC, Croix de Guerre, MBE (April 6, 1906 – July 8, 1982), code named Marie and Diane, was an American who worked with the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the AmericanOffice of Strategic Services (OSS) in France during World War II. The objective of SOE and OSS was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE and OSS agents in France allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. After World War II, Hall worked for the Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Hall was a pioneering agent for the SOE, arriving in Vichy France on 23 August 1941,[1] the first female agent to take up residence in France. She created the Heckler network in Lyon. Over the next 15 months, she "became an expert at support operations – organizing resistance movements; su
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Top Ten Female Spies
1] Violette Szabo (1921-1945)
Young, beautiful, brave, joyous, and the most famous of Britain’s female SOE [Special Operations Executive] agents. Her handler in London, Leo Marks, remembered her as a “dark-haired slip of mischief...She had a Cockney accent which added to her impishness”. Even though she had a young child, she was dropped into Nazi-occupied France for a second time on 8 June 1944. Captured and then tortured by the Gestapo, she was sent to Ravensbruck and on or before 5 February 1945 made to kneel down and then shot in the back of the head by an SS officer.
Having written about some of her fellow deportees from Paris in August 1944, and visited 84 Avenue Foch, where she was interrogated, I’ve always been particularly fascinated by her tragic but inspiring story. She was portrayed memorably by Virginia McKenna in the 1958 movie, Carve Her Name With Pride. And best memorialized by one of my favorite poems, written by Leo Marks especially for Szabo so that she could practice her coding:
The life that I have Explore the shadowy world of espionage and uncover the secret history of female spies whose heroic achievements, courage and strength outshine James Bond. This Sisterhood of Spies are remarkable collection of women who have completed some of the most daring missions in history, using everything in their power to gain information, and risking it all for a cause they believed in. Mata Hari embodied all the intrigue of espionage and remains the most famous female spy in history. The dancer turned WWI spy is said to have seduced diplomats and military officers into giving up their secrets. In February 1917, French authorities arrested her for espionage after intercepting an enemy telegram implicating her as a German spy. She was accused of revealing details of the Allies’ new weapon, found guilty and sentenced to death. A femme fatale, using sex appeal to entice, manipulate…and extract secrets. It’s the stuff of Hollywood movies. That is the legend and legacy of Mata Hari.
Is all that I have
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