Hello and welcome to another edition of Inside the Cover.

Do you know the name Virginia Hall?

If you do, I am truly impressed.

If you don't join the club.

I was not familiar with this person, and I consider myself rather well-read on World War II.

It's now time to go inside the cover.

Tonight's book is A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell.

Virginia Hall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 6th, 1906.

After high school where she was editor in chief of the yearbook and class president her senior year, she attended Radcliffe College of Harvard and Barnar College of Columbia University, where she studied French, Italian, and German.

She also attended George Washington University, where she studied French and Economics.

She wanted to finish her studies in Europe, so she traveled the continent and studied in France, Germany and Austria.

In 1931, she landed an appointment as a consular service clerk in the U.S.

Embassy in Warsaw, Poland.

While she was serving in Turkey, she accidentally shot herself in the left foot in a hunting accident, and after the wound turned gangrenous, her leg was amputated below the knee and replaced with a wooden appendage that she thereafter nicknamed ‘Cuthbert.

Her efforts to become a diplomat were unsuccessful because women were rarely hired.

And in 1937, an obscure rule against hiring people with disabilities worked against her.

She resigned from the Department of State in March of 1937.

Early in World War II, in February 1940, Hall became an ambulance driver for the French Army.

After the fall of France in June of 1940, she made her way to Spain, where she me a British intelligence officer.

This meeting led to Hall working for Britain's clandestine Special Operations Executive, or S.O.E., whose objective was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the axis powers, especially Nazi Germany.

Hall was the first female S.O.E.

agen to take up residence in France, arriving in Vichy, France in August of 1941.

Over the next 15 months, she became an expert at support operations, organizing resistance movements, supplying agents with money, weapons and supplies, helping downed airmen to escape, offering safe houses and medical assistance to wounded agents and pilots.

She fled France in November of 194 to avoid capture by the Germans.

Hall the worked with the American Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, says, returning to France in March of 1944 as a wireless operator for the OSS, working in territory still occupied by the German Army.

She helped prepare France for its liberation by the Allied forces.

This is a remarkable book about a remarkable woman.

She received the Distinguishe Service Cross in September 1945, in recognition of her efforts in France.

President Truman wanted a public award of the medal, but Hall declined, stating that she was ‘still operationa and most anxious to get busy.

Our book tonight has been A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell.

I highly recommend this book.

It tells the story of an extremely attractive woman from Baltimore, conspicuous by reddish hair, a strong American accent, an artificial foot and imperturbable temper whose courage, determination, intelligence and persistence helped win World War II.

Thank you for watching.

Good night and I look forward to our next visit.

Keep a book in your hands.