Virginia Hall's Legacy Deserves One More Tribute: The Medal of Honor

A good friend and former FBI colleague recently surprised me with a wonderful gift. It was a book published in 2019 titled, “A Woman of No Importance” written by Sonia Purnell.  Its sub-title is more descriptive but hardly comprehensive: “The Untold Story of the American Woman Who Helped Win World War II.”

To fully appreciate just how she helped win the war you must read all 352 pages. But there is a great summary of Virginia Hall’s life posted on the website for the U.S. Embassy in Estonia where she served a brief stint in Tallinn. 

A 2019 film featured on Netflix, “A Call to Spy,” is worth a watch. The screenplay was written by Sarah Megan Thomas who plays Virginia Hall.

An earlier biography, published in 2005 by Judith L. Pearson, “The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy” is in my queue to read. However, I found a most interesting presentation by Pearson at a book signing event that, fortunately, was filmed by C-SPAN 2 as part of its Book TV series. This presentation was on December 15, 2005. You can view it here: https://bit.ly/3hYgnz3

 To say that Virginia Hall was an uncelebrated World War II hero is without a doubt. But it is as she wanted it. She shunned the spotlight, always hoping to return to the field as a productive intelligence officer. At the end of WW II, she was presented with the Distinguished Service Cross—the nation’s second highest award for valor--by William Donovan, the head of the Office of Strategic Services. 

Why her DSC has not been upgraded to a Medal of Honor, in my opinion, is yet another example of the many walls that faced Virginia Hall throughout her life. Yet she was able to overcome them all through incredible tenacity and grit, unencumbered by her wooden leg which she affectionately named, “Cuthbert.”  

From organizing resistance groups in Nazi-occupied France to identifying drop zones for OSS agents and supplies, to conducting sabotage against German supply lines to aiding downed fliers in escaping to freedom—even escaping her SS pursuers by climbing over the snow packed Pyrenees in the dead of winter—Virginia Hall was a woman of immeasurable and exceptional importance.

I would like to see her recognized with a posthumous MOH.

This is the current criteria for awarding the MOH:

“The standards to award the Medal of Honor have evolved over time, but the Medal has always stood for actions that go above and beyond. The current criteria were established in 1963 during the Vietnam War.

“The Medal is authorized for any military service member who ‘distinguishes himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty

• While engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States;
• While engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force; or
• While serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party.’

“All recommendations require thorough reports on the act itself, the battlefield, and its setting; at least two sworn eyewitness statements; and any other compelling evidence that can be gathered. Recommendation packets must be approved all the way up the military command structure, ending with the United States President as the Commander-in-Chief.

“By Federal Statute, recommendations for the Medal must be submitted within 3 years of the valorous act and the Medal must be presented within 5 years. Any submissions outside of this timeline require an Act of Congress to waive the time limits.”

On December 14, 1927, by a special Act of Congress, Charles A. Lindbergh was awarded the Medal of Honor for his dramatic and unprecedented solo flight across the Atlantic. Although Lindbergh was a captain in U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve, the United States was not at war when he made his flight.

Nonetheless, his accomplishment was so significant that Congress authorized President Calvin Coolidge to present Lindbergh with the Medal of Honor.

His citation reads: “For displaying heroic courage and skill as a navigator, at the risk of his life, by his nonstop flight in his airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, from New York City to Paris, France, 20-21 May 1927, by which Capt. Lindbergh not only achieved the greatest individual triumph of any American citizen but demonstrated that travel across the ocean by aircraft was possible.”

 Virginia Hall was awarded the DSC without hesitation as her exploits while serving in Europe prior to and during America’s entry into the war were extraordinary. She risked her life, repeatedly, conducting intelligence operations, sabotage missions, rescuing downed fliers while securing their safe repatriation, freeing partisans captured by the Nazis, and recruiting, equipping, and training resistance members while evading the SS and Gestapo.  

That Hall has not been recognized with the MOH is a bit of a mystery to me. It seems that if a civilian can receive the DSC, then why not a MOH for extraordinary valor during wartime?

But there is hope. Several days ago when I began drafting this post, I contacted Judith Pearson, the author of “The Wolves at the Door,” and asked if, during her research, she found any information that indicated Hall was ever considered for the MOH.

Today, New Year's Day, as I complete this, I have some encouraging news. In Pearson's reply she said there was a current, ongoing movement to bestow that honor on Virginia. And it is hoped to be accomplished by this coming summer!

This is a wonderful start to the New Year.

How cool is that?