Secret Agents in Plain Sight
- The Editors at Very Cool Facts
- Jul 11, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 4, 2025
Most people think of spies as men in tuxedos.
These women would like a word.
From the Revolutionary War to World War II, female spies used everything from laundry lines to sheet music to outwit the enemy. Here are a few of the most remarkable.
Anna Strong: The Patriot with the Laundry Line
During the American Revolution, Anna Strong helped run George Washington’s Culper Spy Ring.
Her method? Laundry. She used a black petticoat and a precise number of handkerchiefs on her clothesline to signal secret drop locations to fellow spies.
She turned a quiet domestic task into battlefield communication, hidden in plain sight.
First Woman to Command a U.S. Mission? Harriet Tubman
Known for the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman was also a Union spy during the Civil War. She gathered intelligence behind Confederate lines and led the Combahee River Raid in 1863 — freeing over 700 enslaved people and disrupting Confederate supply routes.
She was the first woman to lead a U.S. military operation — and she never got the official recognition she deserved.
Josephine Baker – The Star Who Smuggled Secrets
One of the most famous entertainers in the world — and a spy for the French Resistance.
Josephine Baker hid intelligence in her sheet music, passed messages written in invisible ink, and used her celebrity to move freely between borders.
When the war ended, she was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor.
Knit. Purl. Sabotage.
At just 23, Phyllis Latour parachuted into Nazi-occupied France, disguised herself as a teenage French girl. She transmitted messages using one-time codes printed on silk, which she wrapped around a knitting needle and hid inside a flat shoelace she wore as a hair tie — all decoded later using Morse code equipment.
She biked around Nazi-held towns selling soap and spying the whole time. After the war, she told no one, not even her family.
Her children and grandchildren only found out she had been a spy when they saw her honored in the news in 2000.
The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe
The Gestapo called her “the most dangerous of all Allied spies.” Virginia Hall coordinated supply drops, trained resistance fighters, and smuggled downed pilots out of France — all with a prosthetic leg she named Cuthbert. When her cover was blown, she hiked across the Pyrenees in winter to escape. On one leg. Then she came back.
Disguised as an old woman selling soap, she returned to Nazi-occupied France and kept running sabotage missions right up to D-Day.
What they didn't teach you in school. Discover forgotten facts, unsung heroes, and secrets that nearly slipped through the cracks:
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