Josephine Baker Served as a World World II Spy

Josephine Baker became a spy for the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France and smuggled intelligence coded on her sheet music to the resistance. In 1941 Baker travelled to the French colonies in North Africa, the reason stated for the trip was her health. But Baker was actually there to establish a liaison and transmission center with British Intelligence in Casablanca, to help set up a network making Spanish Moroccan passports available to European Jews; in order to help them escape from Hitler to South America.

After the war, Josephine Baker received the Croix de guerre and the Rosette de la Resistance military medals.

At her funeral she received full French military honors, the only American-born woman so honored.