![]() ![]() ![]() Through incredible trials, which included the Gestapo’s unrelenting pursuit, her use of disguises, proficiency in French, recruitment of assets - and betrayal by some of them - and the deprivation of virtually every physical comfort one can imagine, Virginia pursued her goal of liberating France, a country with which she had fallen in love.Īs Purnell notes in the final chapter, “Valor rarely reaps the dividends it should.” It was not until after her death in 1982 that the CIA (the successor of OSS) recognized her contributions to the war. She had her gender (sexism was rife in intelligence services and the military in those days), as well as her “handicap” working against her and yet she helped ignite the French Resistance and revolutionized modern secret warfare. She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and this with a prosthetic leg she was forced to wear after a hunting accident. ![]()
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