8. Return of The Limping Lady (Season 2)

damn claustrophobic, with no company besides the rats. Virginia thought back and contemplated whether she could have done anything differently, playing the scenarios over and over in her head. If she tried to run from the Spanish police in the train station, they likely would have shot her dead. Besides, she never would have gotten away, being weak from her recent mountain trek and with a blistered, swollen legs stone.

Virginia imagined the moment in which the Spanish police would hand her over to the Gestapo and their glee at having finally captured the limping lady. She knew the Nazis wouldn't risk letting her escape. They transfer her to a secret facility, interrogate her torture her and kill her, or sometimes the Nazis kept their prisoners alive and attempted to leverage them against the Allies. Months of psychological torture would give way to more physical punishments, dousing with freezing water,

electric shocks, beatings, and cutting. This was the way of the Nazis. But Virginia's capture was too big a threat to the British. She knew too much, and the Nazis could assume that the British would change battle strategy once the s OE Virginia's intelligence agency discovered she'd been captured. Virginia's information would be useless, and so she was as good as dead. I want to speak to the American embassy. I'm an American. Her nationality was maybe the one thing

that could save her. In late Spain was still considered technically neutral in the war. The Spanish dictator Francisco Franco had offered Hitler Spain's allegiance and returned for aid in nation building. There was a division of Spanish volunteers fighting for the German army, but Spain still remained reluctant and fickle. Franco's regime is ideologically complex, and people still fight over whether or not it was fascist or just really authoritarian

and traditionalist, regardless of how anyone's individual sees it. The regime was very friendly to Nazi Germany and especially Fascist Italy, because Italy and Germany had backed Franco in the Civil War. So Spain tended politically to like the Axis powers a lot. That's Andrew or the historian who runs Kansas State University's Institute for Military History. We've heard from him in previous episodes. Once the US enters the war, Spain's position becomes even

more fraught. The Atlantic is now overwhelmingly in Allied hands. It was already under British control that Spain was dependent on being able to buy food from Latin America. They were buying food from Argentina. They were buying food and getting oil from Mexico, and the United States had tremendous

influence in Latin America. If the United States leaned hard on Mexico and Argentina, the US had the wherewithal to choke off Spain's ability to buy anything in Latin America, and so the Spanish government knew it needed to avoid

an open breach with the United States. And so Franco created this complex diplomacy in which he was neutral in the war between America and Britain versus Germany, was non belligerent but pro axis in the war against the Soviet Union, and then claimed to be pro American in the war against Japan. So Franco flirted with helping the Nazis, but usually not at the expense of hurting their trade relationship

with the United States. But maybe Virginia's American citizenship was just enough to override any ribes the Nazis were making for her capture. Hello, do you hear me? If anything happens to me, there will be hell to shut up. We've gone back and then you'll get your answers soon. All she could do now was waiting for the cavalry to arrive and hope they were faster than Robert Alesh and Klaus Barbie. I'm Stephen Talty and from diversion, this is good Assassin's Season two. Being killed would be the

easy part. Being tortured would be the hard part. All intel suggests she is behind many of the prison bricks over the country. She's dangerous, so sabotage plus a little espionage, paramilitary operations make things blow up. The message for Captain Bobby, I believe I have found the nest of the Limping Lady. Episode eight, The Return of the Limping Lady. Yes, Doctor Say, Yes, please open the door. Doctor Say, you are wanted for questioning.

Back in Leone, France, the Gestapo had appeared at the office doorstep of doctor Jean wus Say, Virginia Halls, trusted accomplice in the resistance. It was time for the Nazis to act on the information given to them by Robert Alesh, who had infiltrated Virginia's resistance cell known as Heckler by posing as a priest aiding the freedom fighters. Doctor Hussay was the first man on their list. You know you are in league bus this woman. It would do you

to tell us there she is. The Nazis showed the doctor a wanted poster of Virginia, her likeness sketched out in remarkable detail. Doctor us Say had noticed the posters going up around Leone the day before and knew that somebody somewhere had given up Virginia, but apparently they didn't know everything. If they did, they wouldn't be interrogating him at all. You recognize her, Yes, I do. That is no denial. No, I'm not denying anything except it didn't

know she was this limping lady. She was a patient of mine. What was her name? You have her name, it's there on the poster. Marie Mona interrogation. It's not something that I grow tired. Don't say. They may take as much time with this as you like. But even after hours of intensive questioning, who say never broke? He claimed that he only knew the limping as a patient who had requested care. He provided her nothing but treatment, just as he would anyone, and he had nothing to hide.

What he didn't know was that back at his home, the Nazi operative Robert A. Leash was interrogating his maid, and she was more than happy to provide as many details as she could, thinking she could help spare the doctor's life. You must think of doctor who says, well, being madame, my superiors, I have different methods than I. At this very moment, the good doctor is likely being flayed. Over time, beats of him become strips, and the strips

become chunks. It would be unrecognizable in a matter of ours. And you are the only one who can stop this. The maid didn't know Virginia's real name, but she knew the address of the safe house where she was staying. I can tell you where she lived, but this was information unless already had He'd met Virginia there himself under his cover of father at Coom, and they had already found that safe house abandoned. They needed to know the limping lady's current location. Russay's maid was of no help.

The Gestapo arrested Dr Roussey and sent him to Friend Prison, where he'd be tortured in solitary confinement for weeks until his transfer to the buch and Valved concentration camp, where he would remain for eighteen ruling months. Yeah mhm, damn it. Enjoy your stay, yank. Back in northern Spain, Virginia was transferred to the Miranda de Ebro prison just outside the city of Aa Garis. It was here she encountered her new cellmate, a sex worker named Elena Hello men Nambres

Elena Minamres Maria. Elena explained that she had been in the prison for almost six months, but her sentence would be up in a month. She was very sick and judging by her brittle voice and fragile appearance, Virginia wasn't sure the girl was going to make it. Still, she took to the young woman and did her best to keep Elena safe and healthy. It was in Virginia's nature to be a caretaker, and the two became fast friends. As Elena's release state approached, she asked Virginia to write

a letter to the American consulate in Barcelona. When I get out, I will send it for you. You cannot dress these men with anything around here. Virginia did as Elena said, penning a letter that was half a plea for help and half a coded transmission for the s oe. Elena did survive her sentence, and when she was finally released, Virginia allowed herself a morsel of hope, you can trust me money. Twenty days after Virginia's arrest, a man appeared

at the prison doors asking for her. He displayed assigned notice by the Spanish government for her immediate release. In December two, Virginia was a free woman, all thanks to a sex worker named Elena. It was the first time in her career Virginia was saved by somebody else. Virginia traveled the eighty five miles south to Barcelona and from there to London, a trip made much easier with the help of the s OE, who offered direct assistance in

the form of an escort with verified paperwork. On Christmas, she reunited with her friend, an unofficial handler in the s Oe, Vera Atkins, at a dinner party, but found herself put off by the atmosphere. The war didn't stop with the holidays, and Virginia had recently been informed of doctor Hussay's capture and transfer to a concentration camp at the hands of Robert Alesh. She couldn't help but feel guilty. She didn't want a break or a vacation. She wanted

to get back to France. She wanted to find Robert Alesh and bring him to justice. After the break, Virginia takes the fight back to the Nazis. Hi. This is Stephen Talty, host of Good Assassins. The folks that helped me bring you the show have just launched another podcast

that we think you'll like. It's called War Queens. Every episode of War Queens tells the story of a fearless, powerful female leader from history from Elizabeth Tudor and Golden my years, high stakes wartime gambles, two Angola Is Queen Najinga's willingness to shed and occasionally drink blood to defend her kingdom, to endear A Gandhi's war, to solve a refugee crisis, and so many more. These are super engrossing stories told by expert historians in a way that's accessible

and interesting. It's great listening. Every episode of War Queens brings you the stories of extraordinary leaders, all of them legends. War Queens is out now. Follow the show on Apple podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, and wherever you listen to podcasts. Virginia Hall's returned to France would be long fought. That her face was being plastered on wanted posters all over lyon in Paris gave the s Oe pause at the

idea of sending her back into the Fray. She was assigned a four month stint in Spain, where she was forced to do the grunt work of procuring safe houses for fugitives and other spies. Virginia couldn't help but feel as though her talents were being wasted. She wrote to her superior at the s o E, Colonel Maurice Buckmaster, I've given it a good four months. Anyhow, I always did want to go back to France. When I came out here. I thought that I would be able to help.

But I don't and can't. I'm not doing a job. I am simply living pleasantly and wasting time. It isn't worth while. And after all, my neck is my own. And if I'm willing to get a crook in it because there is a war on, I do think well. Anyhow, I put it up to you. The response from Colonel Buckmaster was less than enthusiastic. I know all about the things you could do, and it is only because I

honestly believe that the Gestapo would also know it. In about a fortnight that I say, no, dearest, No, you are really too well known in the country and it would be wishful thinking believing you could escape detention for more than a few days. To say that Virginia was frustrated was an understatement. After all the great work she'd done in all the lives she'd saved, she was being refused access to the country where she believed she could

do the most good. For the next few months in London, she stowed with every passing day considered the damage Robert Alesh could be doing to the Allies. She had warned her superiors about him, but hadn't received any updates regarding his current location or actions. She had to find a lesh, and she was sick of waiting. Before she realized it,

the year Ninet had rolled in. Multiple attempts to return to France were all denied by Buckmaster, and Virginia finally decided that the s OE was no longer the place for her. So OSS really was the United States first foray into a civilian intelligence agency or service. That's Chris Costa, the executive director of the International Spy Museum. He worked as an intelligence officer for twenty five years. Chris is

talking about the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services. We had the FBI, but we had no national intelligence capability. We had military intelligence, we had ad tches in the United States, and we had a tradition of developing battlefield intelligence when it was called for, but we didn't have a civilian intelligence agency. So this was a big move. Costa explained that the Americans created the agency largely in the mold of Britain's s OE, Virginia's agency. They really

did have very similar design. They had things that blew up. They also recruited agents to provide intelligence. They helped move down to aviators, aviators that were trying to escape and evade after they parachuted into enemy territory so they could get back in the fight. Virginia knew that the new American agency, the O S S, had connections with the

s OE. She'd heard rumors that the OSS was hiring young agents with nothing to lose, bold shoot first, ask questions later types that seemed to be more her speed, But the agency hadn't made it to the key countries in Europe just yet, with most of their operations up to that point taking place in North Africa and Sweden. Virginia approached Buckmaster with a new strategy. The O S S could do great work in France, but they didn't

know the country. What they needed was someone who knew the grounds, someone with resistance connections, and someone experienced in undercover work. She proposed formally leaving s OE and joining the O S S. She would work entirely in disguise, and if she were captured, she would be the Americans problem, not Britons. Her face was known, she limped, she had a horrible action. There was no way she would survive even if they were able to infiltrator back into the country.

There were too many things against her. That's Judith Pearson from earlier episodes. She's the author of the first biography of Virginia Hall, The Wolves at the Door, And so I believe she really drew on her love of the theater from when she was growing up, acting a character which she had really been doing all along, And so why not disguise herself as an old woman. She could limp and not be caught. She could mumble and her

accent not necessarily be noticed. And if she patted her clothing and dyed her hair and hunched over, she had looked nothing like the face that was on that poster. We can't say for sure if Virginia's motivations to get back into France were entirely driven by her personal need to see Robert Alesh brought to justice, but you have

to imagine it was a factor for his part. Buckmaster grudgingly took Virginia's proposal to the OSS, and it was accepted, and so on March tenth, Virginia joined the OSS with a one year contract. But the France that Virginia was returning to had devolved into even more violence. Here's Andrew Ore again, the military historian, German troops become more violent probably after our ninety three, as the sense of desperation kicks in. They become less disciplined, more willing to engage

in low scale violence. They're not shooting up Paris, but German troops are more likely to beat up and rob civilians. They are more likely to rape French women. The later in the war, you get your subject to search more often, you're more likely to be arrested on fabricated charges. As the war goes along, German aggression was at an all time high, with horrific murders taking place on the streets against French nationals, especially Jews. The Nazis had become paranoid

about rebellion and uprisings. Their pension for deportations to concentration camps had increased tenfold. On top of that, Virginia came to discover that almost the entirety of Heckler had been wiped out. Robert Alesh had succeeded in pulling apart the web of resistance sheet created and a new French fascist paramilitary group had popped up to aid the Nazis, created by the v She regime and supported by the Germans.

It was known as the Mileise. So the Milease was founded in January nine three, so again in those final eighteen months when things are much more violent in in Tens in France, and when the Germans have occupied by this point the entire territory. That's Dr Ludovin Brock. She's a scholar of World War to French history and lecturer at the University of Westminster. It's essentially a paramilitary force VISI, and their mission is quite similar to that of the

s S S. It's to suppress especially resistors. By nine you know, the kind of whispers of resistance we were talking about earlier are now shouts, and the resistors are also becoming more armed, becoming more of a threat. Sabotage is increasing and people are getting more angry. So there's a very keen commitment to suppress this resistance, and resistors are often

portrayed by VC propagandist traders for instance, as terrorists. In fact, the Malise was an anti Semitic secret police force stuffed to the brim with amateur gang members and fascist ideal logues who are French citizens and knew the people in the towns better than the Nazis ever could. Rock told us about the type of Frenchman who joined the organization. You probably be from a quite radical, possibly right winged background. You were probably a man, You were probably very angry,

anti Semitism, xenophobia. Those are the kind of values which would have been important for a militia. The Malise made no distinction between political enemies and personal ones. They saw Nazism as a means to eradicate everything they disagreed with or disliked in another human being, and they were growing in massive numbers daily. Virginia's hunt for Robert A Lesh would have to be put on hold. After the break, Virginia Hall finds another group she sees taking on the

Molise and winning. Ginia's return to France had a rocky start. The os S gave her a partner co named Aramis, who was sixty two years old, inexperienced in the field, and talkative. When he met Virginia, Aramis blurted out his entire history, his birthplace, his family and job history. As though she was a close friend. Ah, you wouldn't believe my tobers the share amount of things they are asking of me back home. Mon dieu. As though I'm in my better years, I don't understand those who always see

their children as babies. I've been begging for my children to stop being children for years, to grow up and take care of themselves for once. This is what I get for spoiling. Then, Uh, there's food on the lane. Yes, he was loud, he had a bad day, He was always in pain. He wanted food, he wanted to rest. He was just a pain in the deary year. First impressions meant everything to Virginia, and this guy didn't seem

to know how to keep his mouth shut. He was violating the very first lesson taught by the S O E and the OSS in the field. Don't let anyone know who you really are. Virginia's primary position with the O S S was to be a radio technician responsible for wiring and broadcasting messages about German truth movements back to London, as well as signaling locations for parachute drops. Aramis was to be centered in Paris, where he'd helped develop safe houses for spies and resistance fighters in need

of hiding. Notably, Virginia was to remain in disguise throughout her entire mission. She dyed her hair gray and hid it under a folded handkerche of. She doubled up on puffy clothes, sporting two wolf skirts. She dressed and muted unremarkable colors, anything to give off the impression that she wasn't a woman in her late thirties but closer to sixty. Virginia was so committed to her new role that she had a dentist changed her American villings two more closely

resembled the dental work done by the French. In fact, Brad Catling, Virginia's great nephew, attended a c I A lecture recently and heard this, Virginia's disguise was one of the best that the c I are the you know, the American intelligence had ever come up with, because it was so effective, and it allowed her to be in a place where she had already been burned, where her cover had already been blown. She made sure she could

not be mistaken for a freedom fighter. She became someone entirely invisible in the war effort Fresh New York when Virginia and Aramis first arrived in Paris by train. They were met with a ghastly site. More of the great city was blown to bits than they'd expected. The Germans and the Malise had torn and burnt down buildings and homes,

turning once lively and populated neighborhoods into ghost towns. There seemed to be no spark of life in any of the citizens who wandered the city, seemingly in a haunted haze. After settling Aramis into his safe house, Virginia set off for a farm in the small village of my Due, when she would be staying in a cottage owned by resistance member Eugene lopan A. Virginia worked on Lopanese farm for a few months, tending to livestock and performing other

daily farm duties. She concocted a plan to sell cheese to the Nazis, hoping to get close to them and potentially overhear plans. While her disguise was good enough to fool them, she never received any helpful information to send back to London, and she quickly considered her time in the Oss wasted. She eventually transferred to the city of Kne a few hours south of Paris to meet a

contact she hoped would leverage her talents more effectively. The contact name was Colonel besser Row, and he was the chief of police with good leadership standing the resistance. Virginia had hoped to meet him because vess Row was in league with a new faction of French, British and German freedom fighters, a ragtag group of men growing in numbers throughout the country known as the Marquis Sundays Jerza. So

the McKey is a kind of resistance guerilla fighter. That's scholar Ludovin Brock again, she's talking about the molasses opposite the Marquis. There's not like a single organization. It's much more fractured, especially in its founding. It starts really nineteen three with young men who are evading the forced labor service. Starting in n frenchmen were deported to Germany to work as forced laborers for the Nazi regime. Over the course of two years, over half a million Frenchmen were sent away.

This caused widespread outrage. And what they do is they end up going into hiding in the woods or in the countryside. In the mountains and so that they don't have to be sent to Germany, and they live in camps and kind of rural areas, deserted farmyards, all of these things. They kind of make established homes there. These fighters sabotaged German forces and French collaborators scrapping to get their country back, But the McKee weren't unified in their aims.

Different mcke's worked differently and had different visions. Some of them might be in favor for immediate action, so they want to immediately use their weapons their intelligence to carry out attacks against German forces or French and or French collaborators. Now this kind of immediate action isn't always supported though, because it creates retaliations and it can expose but not

really solve. So some people prefer to think that the mackie should be more in favor of getting ready for action once the Allies are about to land and or landing I mean by this point, by especially, you pretty much know that if you're in active resistance and you get caught, you're going to suffer the greatest consequences. But also by that time you will have seen so much that you're commitment might be you know stronger than ever. The McKee were a nightmare for the Gestapo and Relise.

They were guerrilla warfare fighters who could blend in with the French citizenry and sabotage German trains, trucks and tanks using weapons air dropped by the British. Various sections of France had their own faction of Maquee, and Virginia worked closely with the Cone Group. She was ecstatic to finally jump directly into the fight with these men, thinking she may become one of them. But vest Row had something

else in mind. While the McKee were holding their own against the German forces, they were still mostly unstructured and undisciplined. They could shoot straight and bomb efficiently, but they weren't operating in strategic terms. Best Row thought they needed someone with covert experience, someone who knew how to make a plan and executed down to the finest detail. Via One cannot help but admire your expertise, but I have to wonder if you are being used to your fullish potential.

What were you thinking, margaretant work not exactly. Colonel Bestrow didn't want Virginia Hall to join the Maquee. He wanted her to beat them, coming up on the next episode of Good Assassins. Finally, on June one, at nine o'clock at night, the broadcast of Resistance was waiting for ladies and gentlemen. We may be approaching a fateful hour all night long. Well, it must have been pouring in from Berlin claiming that d Day is here, claiming that the

invasion of Western Europe. When you think of a trailblazer, she absolutely embodies it. It's someone who was willing to defy all convention. If you have any questions for us about Good Assassins, if you're curious about some aspect of Virginia Hall story, or have any comments on the podcast, we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at good Assassins at diversion audio dot com. Make sure you spell assassins correctly. Again, that's Good Assassins at Diversion Audio

dot com. We'll try to answer your questions on a future episode. Find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at diversion pods. Good Assassins is a production of Diversion Audio in association with I Heart Podcasts. This season is hosted by Stephen Talti and written by C. D. Carpenter, Produced and directed by Kevin Thompson for Real Jet Packs Productions. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman.

Additional research and reporting by Sophie McNulty. Theme music by Tyler Cash featuring the voices of michaela Is Caerdo, Raphael cork Kill, Lenna Klingerman, John Pierkes, Andrew polk or Lock, Cassidy Manoel Falciano, Sean Gormley, Matthew Amant, and Steve Rautman. Sound design, mixing and mastering by Paul Goodrich. Sound editing by Justin Kilpatrick. Executive producers Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and Scott Waxman for Diversion Audio. Diversion Audio