Women in the OSS and SOE: The women who were spies
Women spies could have been from one of three variations, SOE informants, OSS informants, or members of the FFI or Free French Intellegence. The Office of Strategic Services was established in 1942 in the US to collect and analyze strategic information, and perform operations that weren't assigned specifically to other departments. The SOE, Britian's secret service, had already been in operation since July of 1940, also known as the Special Operations Executive, had a bit more blunt objective – "to foster resistance among the civil population in Nazi-occupied Europe and to promote sabotage and subversion." The Free French worked with the SOE and OSS to pass intellegence, as well as attempt to rescue important persons, and create sabotage when at all possible. (continued below).
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Mata Hari had made the woman spy famous during WWI, however, women had been used as spies for centuries. During WWII, it was realized that women were perfect for certain types of intellegent work. The expanding roles of women allowed them to play a larger role in spying and yet still slip through the enemy's fingertips much easier than men. Although women often lacked the necessary background for reporting specific technical informaiton, they were often able to extract "intimate" knowledge of German military intentions from military officers in a variety of ways. Often, the women found jobs as servants or otherwise transplanted themselves into the lives of the enemy, allowing themselves to become part of the officer's dating pool or social circle. Of course, there were women who worked for both the SOE and OSS who were not operatives overseas.
Women such as Julia Child, who worked with the OSS and concocted a shark repellant to keep sharks from setting off underwater explosives, served as WACS, ATS, and civilian employees in offices to create inovative spy tools and gadgets - think James Bond toys -to help WWII spies.
One of the most famous OSS women spies was Virginia Hall, who was the only civilian to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. She was first a French agent, and then, after having escaped once from Germany (which was no easy task, due to the fact that she had one wooden leg), she re-entered France as part of the OSS, and continued to be a vital source of information until the D-day invasion. She was so valuable a spy that the Germans put out wanted posters in towns telling people to look for a woman with a limp, but her elderly milk maid disguise and painstaking work to teach herself how to walk without limping paid off, and she was not discovered.
Marlene Dietrich also worked with the OSS. What many people don't know is that she was begged to return to Germany prior to the war, so her many appearances at the front lines were not exactly spy-related, but rather part of a large propaganda campaign trying to point out the fact that the United States, and Marlene Dietrich was not afraid of Germany. There are some rumors that Glenn Miller may have also been involved with this, as well as her rescue from the battle of the bugle, but there's no solid proof of any dealings between the two of them, or Miller with the OSS.
In the SOE, most women had either "joined in the FANY" or "joined the WAAF" to explain their absence and training. They were almost all fluent in French and / or German, and many of them had visited or lived in Paris before the war. Each story is somewhat different in the mission details, however, these women were almost always dropped via parachute into the French countryside, where they made their way to their destination.
Recommended Reading on Women Spies in WWII: