Virginia Hall Goillot, “Dindy”, code named Marie and Diane, born 06-04-1906, in Baltimore, 
Maryland, United States, the daughter of Edwin “Ned” Lee Hall, a wealthy Baltimore entrepreneur, and Barbara Virginia, born Hammel, (also his secretary). Ned Hall’s father, John W. Hall, had stowed away on his father’s clipper ship at the age of nine, and later became a wealthy businessman. She had a brother, John, four years her senior. Virginia was close to her family members, who affectionately nicknamed her “Dindy”
Virginia studied French, Italian, and German at the prestigious American liberal arts colleges Radcliffe College 
and Barnard College 
before moving to Europe to continue her studies. She studied in France, Germany, and Austria until July 1931, when she was hired as an administrative assistant at the American Embassy in Warsaw, the Polish capital. In April 1933, she was transferred to the American Consulate in İzmir, Turkey.
On 08-12-1933, she accidentally shot herself in her left leg while climbing over a fence during a hunting expedition in Turkey. Her leg was amputated below the knee and replaced with a wooden prosthetic leg, which she jokingly nicknamed “Cuthbert.” The prosthetic leg earned her the French nickname “la dame qui boite” (“the lady who limps”) during World War II.
Hall hoped for a career in the American diplomatic service but had to abandon that hope. Because of her accident, the American diplomatic service refused her the entrance exam. In 1939, she resigned from the State Department 
and returned to study, this time at American University in Washington, D.C. 
At the outbreak of World War II, Hall was in Paris. She decided to join the French ambulance service, Services Sanitaires de l’Armée, and as an ambulance driver transported wounded soldiers away from the front. Hall was in Vichy France when the French surrendered in the summer of 1940. From Vichy France, Hall managed to reach London in August.
Vichy France was France under the authoritarian rule of Marshal Petain, Henri Philippe Benomi Omer Joseph 
during World War II. Under this Vichy regime, France was officially called État français (French State), and the government was based in the city of Vichy. The Vichy regime lasted from 10-07-1940, to 20-08-1944, with most of the country initially occupied by Nazi Germany and, from November 1942, all of France, and to a much lesser extent, by Germany’s ally, Italy. During this time, the regime increasingly collaborated with Germany.
In British ServiceIn London, Virginia Hall volunteered for the French (“F”) section of the recently established British intelligence agency, Special Operations Executive (SOE). 
The British sent Hall back to Vichy France in August 1941, where she spent 15 months in Lyon, pretending to be a New York Post correspondent, to help coordinate the Resistance’s activities. She rescued Allied airmen who had crashed in France and ensured their safe return to England. She also arranged the escapes of Allied prisoners of war, organized sabotage operations against German supply lines, and ensured that supplies to the Resistance were delivered by parachute.
When the Germans suddenly occupied Vichy France in November 1942, Hall was able to escape to Spain at the last minute. After working for the SOE in Madrid for a time, she returned to London, where the British awarded her an honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire 
in July 1943 in recognition of her services.
Hall joined the American intelligence agency Office of Strategic Services (OSS) 
in March 1944 and returned to France at her own request. Because of her prosthetic leg, she could not parachute, so she was dropped off in Brittany on a British Motor Torpedo Boat. During this mission, codenamed “Diane,” she evaded the Gestapo and established contact with the Resistance in central France. She mapped drop zones (places where commandos and supplies could be safely landed by parachute) and located safe houses for people in hiding, such as Allied airmen who had crashed in France.
After the Normandy landings in June 1944 
, she contacted one of the teams in Operation Jedburgh, which parachuted secret agents into France, Belgium, and the Netherlands to carry out sabotage and guerrilla operations. She also helped train three battalions of Resistance troops in guerrilla warfare.
In the 1950s, Hall married Paul Goillot, 
eight years younger than her, a Paris-born New Yorker who also worked for the OSS, whom she had met in France during the war. A year later, she joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an intelligence analyst covering French parliamentary affairs. She served alongside her husband in the CIA’s Special Activities Division. 
Death and burial ground of Virginia Hall Goillot, “Dindy”, code named Marie and Diane.
In 1966, Hall retired and settled on a farm in Barnesville, Maryland. She died 08-07-1982 (aged 76) in a hospital in Rockville, Maryland,and was buried at Druid Ridge Cemetery in Pikesville, Maryland. 
AwardsIn recognition of her services, she was made an honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1943 and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest American military decoration, in 1945. She was the only non-military woman to receive this award during World War II.
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