Oil on Canvas, 2006 Donated by Richard J. Guggenhime
When France fell under the Nazi boot in June 1940, Great Britain stood alone against the enemy. Fearing a similar fate for his country, Winston Churchill created the Special Operations Executive (SOE), an organization specializing in irregular warfare against German forces in occupied countries. SOE’s early recruits for espionage operations were from a variety of people from all classes, pre-war occupations, and countries—including a 35-year-old American woman by the name of Virginia Hall from Baltimore, Maryland. Hall had seen the Nazi devastation in France firsthand and was eager to do her part to defeat fascism. She underwent SOE’s rigorous preparation, remarkably, not because she was a woman, but because her left leg was made of wood, the result of a below-the-knee amputation necessitated by a pre-war hunting accident.
Dieses Bild ist eine Arbeit eines CIA-Mitarbeiters. Als ein Werk der Regierung der Vereinigten Staaten ist dieses Bild in den USA gemeinfrei.
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Virginia HallVirginia Hall Goillot DSC Croix de guerre MBE war eine US-amerikanische Geheimagentin während des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Sie stand in den Diensten der britischen Special Operations Executive (SOE) und des US-amerikanischen Office of Strategic Services (OSS). .. weiterlesen