The Daring Book for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan [76]
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr
Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler is best known as Hedy Lamarr, movie star of the 1930s and ’40s. But she was also an inventor who patented an idea that was to become the key to modern wireless communication. During World War II, Hedy, along with George Antheil, invented a way to make military communications secure through frequency-hopping, an early form of a technology called spread spectrum. Hedy’s status as a beautiful and successful actress provided her with the perfect cover: she was able to visit a variety of venues on tour and interact with many people, none of whom suspected that the stunning starlet might be listening closely and thinking of ways to help the U.S. cause.
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was another World War II-era entertainer whose celebrity status helped distract from her mission as a spy. Josephine was an African American dancer and singer from St. Louis, Missouri. She found some success in the United States, but was hindered by racial prejudice. She moved to Paris when she was nineteen and became an international star. When World War II began, she started working as an undercover operative for the French Resistance, transporting orders and maps from the Resistance into countries occupied by Germany. Her fame and renown made it easy for her to pass unsuspected, as foreign officials were thrilled to meet such a famous performer, but she wrote the secret information in disappearing ink on her sheet music just in case.
The Girl Guides
During the First World War, the Girl Guides—the British version of Girl Scouts—were used as couriers for secret messages by MI-5, Britain’s counter-intelligence agency. Messengers were needed to work in the War Office at the time, and at first Boy Scouts were used. But they proved to be difficult to manage, so Girl Guides were asked to serve instead. The girls, most of whom were between fourteen and eighteen years old, ran messages and patrolled on the roof; for their efforts they were paid ten shillings a week, plus food. Like all employees of MI-5, they took a pledge of secrecy. But unlike many employees of MI-5, they were among the least likely spies to arouse suspicion.
REVOLUTIONARY WAR SPIES
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During the Revolutionary War, many women up and down the East Coast passed important information along to General Washington at Valley Forge. Philadelphian Lydia Barrington Darragh spied on the British for American officers. Two Loyalists (citizens loyal to Britain), “Miss Jenny” and Ann Bates, spied on the Americans for the British. Ann Trotter Bailey carried messages across enemy territory in 1774, as did Sarah Bradlee Fulton, nicknamed the “mother of the Boston Tea Party”; Emily Geiger rode fifty miles through enemy territory to deliver information to General Sumter. The anonymous spy “355”—a numerical code that meant “lady” or “woman”—was a member of the Culper Ring, a New York-based secret spy organization. She was seized by the British in 1780 and died on a prison ship—but not before she named Benedict Arnold as a potential traitor.
CIVIL WAR SPIES
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Pauline Cushman was an actress who worked as a Union spy. She was captured with incriminating papers and sentenced to be executed, but was rescued just three days prior to her hanging. President Abraham Lincoln gave her the honorary commission of Major, and she toured the country for years, telling of her exploits spying for the Union.
Mary Elizabeth Bowser was a freed slave who served as a maid in the Confederate White House.