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A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell is the biography of Virginia Hall, a woman whose name I had never heard before, but whose incredible life and legacy have helped shape the world we live in today. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Hall, who had ambitions of becoming a diplomat, was relegated to desk jobs at the State Department due to sexism, and, after an accident that resulted in the amputation of her leg, ableism. She refused to be discounted and signed up with the French 9th artillery regiment to drive ambulances — the only option available to women and foreigners. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ She would go on to join the SOE or Special Operations Executive (a British covert intelligence group) in its early days, and their desperation for information would provide the opportunities Hall dreamed of. Fiercely independent and with an indomitable spirit, she threw herself into danger. Her keen instincts and magnetic personality helped her to create a network of intelligence agents and resistance fighters wherever she went. She evaded the Gestapo, broke fellow spies out of jail, scaled mountains, and, despite being compromised, continued to take incredible risks in the name of the French resistance. Under her leadership, the Haute-Loire defeated the Germans without military help, paving the way for the Allies to recapture Paris. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Despite a band of loyal followers, Hall’s contributions to the Allied forces (and to covert intelligence: “The CIA acknowledges that the Jawbreaker team it sent into Afghanistan before and after 9/11 was a direct descendant of her secret operations within the French Resistance during WWII.”) went largely unacknowledged both at home and abroad. After the war ended, Hall struggled to be taken seriously as a woman by the OSS and eventually, the CIA. It wasn’t until after her death in 1982 that the tide began to change. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Image descriptions in comments. via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/Cgo16GPLdIP/