Roger Hall 1919 - 2008

I usually don't get serious here, but just for now I'm going to.
I met Roger Hall through my "real life" occupation in 2005. I remember walking in to his home and the first words that he said to me were "Those are some really fancy shoes you got on there!" I didn't know how to take the statement because sometimes when I encounter men of Mr. Hall's age, they aren't always of full mental faculty.
This however, was not the case with Roger Hall.

Mr. Hall had a wit about him that you rarely run in to in life...not just in men his age, but in people in general. He always had some hilarious take on something you were discussing or a fantastic anecdote to share. And when you read the details of his life below, you'll understand why.

I'll leave you with his obituary from The Wilmington News Journal that details a life truly lived, and words that you won't often hear from me....it was TRULY a pleasure to have known this man.

WWII spy, novelist Roger Hall dies

WILMINGTON -- Writer and former OSS agent Roger Hall, who penned the spy classic "You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger" more than a half-century ago about his exploits as a World War II spy, died from congestive heart failure in his Brandywine Hundred home Sunday afternoon. He was 89.

"I hope God has a sense of humor, because if he doesn't, I'm in a lot of trouble," he told his wife of 35 years, Linda Texter Hall, just a few days before he died.

"He was a good agent with a great sense of humor," recalled Elizabeth McIntosh, author of "Sisterhood of Spies," and who served with the OSS in Shanghai during the war.

Hall, who grew up in Annapolis, Md., where his father, a Naval officer, was stationed, was recruited soon after World War II began by the United States' Office of Strategic Services, the World War II intelligence agency that was dissolved after the war and then became the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947.

As a member of the OSS, Hall trained in Washington, D.C., and in England, parachuted behind enemy lines in Europe, and, with his friend William Colby, future CIA director, accepted the surrender of 10,000 German troops in Norway in 1945.

Hall had knee replacement surgery in March. While undergoing physical therapy in April, he felt exhausted, and woke up the following morning with chills. Doctors found he had pneumonia and later found numerous blockages in his heart.

They decided not to perform a bypass because of his age, the high number of blockages and his wish to go home.

He returned home from the hospital only last Tuesday, however, because of the many infections he contracted in the hospital.

"He was one of kind," said Dan Pinck, who served with Hall in the OSS during World War II. "A very strong-minded person, he wrote as he saw it, and no one ever told him otherwise. Beneath his humor was a lot of seriousness."

Hall left the agency because, he said, it had "become too bureaucratic."

Eleven publishers rejected "You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger," now recognized as a classic of its kind, before it was published in 1957. It was republished in 2004 by the Naval Institute Press. Hall was the subject of a profile in The News Journal in January 2007, on the book's 50th anniversary.

"Roger Hall epitomized the finest OSS traditions established by General [Bill] Donovan [founder of the OSS]," said OSS Society President Charles Pinck, Dan's son.

"Known for his quick wit and levity, we should not forget that he volunteered for one of World War II's most dangerous missions in which he parachuted behind enemy lines in Europe to fight the Nazis and was selected by Major William Colby, who would later become head of the CIA, to head one-half of the Norway Special Operations Group (NORSO). I think General Donovan must have had Roger in mind when he said that he 'would rather have a young lieutenant with enough guts to disobey a direct order than a colonel too regimented to think and act for himself.' Roger had more than enough guts."

After the war, Hall published stories and articles in many publications, including The New Yorker and The New York Times, and published three books, including a spy novel and a novel about high-fashion models. He also was cartoon editor at True magazine in the early 1970s.

A bachelor most of his life, he met his wife at a writers conference in 1968. They married in 1973 and moved to Delaware in 1986.

During his final hours, he repeatedly asked to go home, Texter Hall said.

"One time, he harked back to his days in the OSS," she said. " 'The plane is here and I can't find my parachute,' he said. I told him it was all packed and on the plane. All your men are there on the ground waiting for you, and you're over the drop zone. They're waiting for you. Find your parachute and you'll be perfectly safe."

Services are pending.