One of Dana Hall’s most legendary former students, Amy Elizabeth “Betty” (Thorpe) Pack, was an American spy for the British and the United States during World War II. She was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1910, and attended Dana Hall during the 1927-1928 school year. Her report card for that year shows that Betty excelled in her language classes. About ten years later she was recruited by the British Secret Intelligence Service (commonly known as M16), and later by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), formed in 1942 to coordinate espionage activities for the American Armed Services.
Betty’s intelligence, beauty, and language skills made her uniquely suited to move freely at all levels of society, where she would gather secret information from powerful men by seducing them. As “Cynthia” (her code name) she was determined in her fight against Hitler and Nazism, and made invaluable contributions to the Allied cause. Her theft of the Vichy French naval codes from a Washington D.C. embassy allowed the Allies to mount a successful military effort in North Africa in November 1942. The campaign known as “Operation Torch,” and approved by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, diverted enemy resources from the Eastern front, and gave the U.S. Army valuable combat experience before opening the Western front against Germany in 1944.
“Cynthia” was also involved with providing preliminary intelligence to the British on the Enigma enciphering machine, which allowed German military messages to be decrypted, and is thought to have helped save thousands of British and American lives. In an article published two months before her death and based on her unpublished memoir, she is quoted as saying “In the dangerous years of Nazi aggression I looked upon myself as a soldier serving my country. No sacrifice was too great for the soldiers.” Her British and American superiors were known to refer to Betty Pack as “the greatest unsung heroine of the war.”
Bibliography
Blum, Howard. The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of Espionage, Adventure, and Betrayal. New York, Harper Collins, c2016.
Lowell, Mary S. Cast No Shadow: The Life of the American Who Changed the Course of World War II. New York: Pantheon Books, c1992.
Dana Hall School Archives. Report Card Files.
Lowell, Mary S. Cast No Shadow: The Life of the American Who Changed the Course of World War II. New York: Pantheon Books, c1992.
Wikipedia Contributors. (2025, September 1) “Amy Elizabeth Thorpe” Accessed November 12, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Elizabeth_Thorpe