Many people during the Second World War were thrust into the heart of history’s deadliest
conflict.
There were people who lived ordinary lives such as teachers who were called up to take
up arms against their enemies.
For example in the Philippines, there was a teacher called Nieves Fernandez who feared
for her students so much at the hands of the Japanese forces that she created a guerrilla
group of fighters and they would kill over 200 enemy soldiers and liberate a number of
villages.
But there were many women who were recruited by the British to join Special Operations
Executive, and they worked as spies and couriers of information between the British and the
French Resistance.
But there was one woman who worked as a nurse before the war, but she became one of the
conflicts deadliest spies, and she was known herself for even killing Germans with her
own hands.
Join us today as we look at the remarkable story of Nancy Wake, and as always to support
our channel please make sure to subscribe.
Nancy Wake was born in Wellington in New Zealand on the 30th August 1912, and was born into
a large family.
She was Maori through her great grandmother, and her family then moved to Australia in
1914.
In Sydney she attended a Household Arts school, and then at the age of 16 she ran away from
home and then she began to work as a nurse.
She had inherited £200 from her aunt, and with this money she then travelled to New
York and then went on to London where she worked as a journalist.
She was very well trained, and in the 1930s she moved to Paris where she worked for a
newspaper as a European correspondence.
But then she saw the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, and she would say in Vienna that she
‘saw roving Nazi gangs randomly beating Jewish men and women in the streets.’
But in 1937 she met and married a wealthy French Industrialist named Henri Edmond Fiocca,
and when the Germans invaded during the Second World War, she was living in Marseilles.
Nancy then saw the importance of fighting the Germans, and she worked as an ambulance
driver, and after France fell to the Wehrmacht, she then joined the Pat O’Leary line, which
was an escape network to smuggle Allie soldiers and airmen who were stranded or shot over
Europe back home.
They were hidden in cellars, attics and people’s houses and then were transported through to
neutral Spain, and then onto Gibraltar where they were then sent home.
But the German authorities such as the Gestapo knew what was happening, and they knew that
there were many people who were helping conceal allied soldiers and airmen.
But Nancy Wake would manage to evade capture from the Gestapo, and she became known as
‘The White Mouse,’ and the Resistance at the time knew that her life was in constant
danger for her activities, and the Gestapo even managed to intercept telephone calls
for her and her mail.
She was living very dangerously, and the Gestapo then became more dangerous as her network
was betrayed, and she was forced to flee France.
Her husband Henri stayed behind, but he was later arrested and was tortured before he
was later executed for his treason.
But Nancy Wake had a confident tactic to sneak past Nazi guard posts, as she would later
say, ‘A little powder and a little drink one the way, and I’d pass the German posts
and wink and say ‘do you want to search me?
God what a flirtatious little so and so I was.’
However she was clearly a talented spy, and this would not go un-noticed.
But in early 1943 whilst trying to escape France she was picked up and was arrested
in Toulouse but was then released days later.
The Head of the O’Leary Line saved her, by saying she was his mistress, and she managed
to cross the Pyrenees and get to Spain before she was repatriated to Britain.
Her actions had managed to save many lives, but Nancy Wake’s war was just beginning.
She was approached by SOE, Special Operations Executive and was subjected to their vigorous
training programme.
Nancy was trained with other women including Vera Atkin who said she was ‘a real Australian
bombshell, Tremendous vitality, flashing eyes, everything she did, she did well.’
She was said to have been a very good and fast shot, and she was great in the field,
and was known for being incredibly brave.
She was seen as an ideal spy, and on the evening of the 29th April 1944 as part of a three
person team, she parachuted into France.
She got tangled in a tree and was rescued by a resistance leader, and he said ‘I hope
that all the trees in France bear such beautiful fruit this year,’ and she replied with ‘Don’t
give me that French shit.’
But the team was to work between London and the local resistance led by Emile Coulaudo.
He treated them with contempt and wanted money and weapons, not SOE members.
But then they managed to get this for this resistance, and Wake was to mark locations
for the materials and money to be parachuted.
She then had to collect it, and distribute it.
This was very dangerous.
On the 20th May Couloudon mobilised his 7000 men in three groups, and aimed to liberate
certain areas from Germans with his own men.
But two weeks later they were attacked by the Germans, and then following this further
brutal attacks happened and the Resistance had many casualties.
Nancy Wake and her team then retreated 150kms to the west.
But during the run, the radio operator left his radio and codes behind, and SOE needed
to be in contact with London.
The nearest operator was a fair way away, and Nancy then rose a distance of around 500
kms in 72 hours, and linked up.
Following this bike ride, she then linked up with other resistance groups.
Along with the resistance, Nancy Wake initiated a number of attacks on German convoys and
they fought off attacks on their camps by the Germans, but her main job remained to
distribute arms and materials for the resistance which was parachuted in most nights.
However Nancy Wake was a woman who was not afraid to take the lives of the enemy herself.
She took part in a raid that destroyed the Gestapo Headquarters in Montlucon, which resulted
in the deaths of 38 German officials and soldiers.
However at one point, she found out that resistance she was fighting with had been mistreating
women and she managed to convince the men to release the women and she gave them new
clothes.
Two of the girls she freed, but there was one girl that Nancy wake believed was a German
spy.
With this, she carried out her interrogation herself and managed to expose her and show
her for what she was.
But many of the men who she served with did not have it in their heart to execute the
woman, and a number had grown close to her.
But Wake herself did not have any of this attachment, and she offered to do it herself.
But when the men saw that she would do this they stepped up.
But at her execution, the spy stripped naked, and spat in Nancy’s face before she was
shot dead.
However Nancy Wake would not take any prisoners during one attack upon an SS sentry and soldier.
She was known for being deadly, and during one attack the SOE members and the resistance
fighters raided a German gun factory.
They came across an SS sentry who then was about to raise the alarm and give her and
her crew away, but Wake attacked with her bare hands.
She said that, ‘They’d taught this judo chop stuff with the flat of the hand at SOE,
and I practised away at it.
But this was the only time I used it, whack, and it killed him all right.
I was really surprised.’
She jumped at the SS Sentry and jabbed him in the throat and he died straight away from
the attack.
She would continue fighting, and as the Americans invaded southern France her distance groups
continued to harry the retreating Germans.
Inside of Vichy, she would learn about the execution of her husband, but her work was
coming to an end and following the war she was awarded the George Medal, and the United
States Medal of Freedom along with other accolades.
She worked in the intelligence department for the British Air Ministry, and would return
to Australia to stand as a candidate in government.
She returned to England and worked as an intelligence officer again, before heading back to Australia
once more.
But she finally returned to England in 2001 and she died in 2011 at the age of 98, and
she gave instruction for her ashes to be scattered at Montlucon, the site where the Gestapo HQ
was raided.
Nancy Wake was an incredible woman, who left Australia initially to live an exciting life
and she travelled and lived in many different countries.
But during the Second World War she saved the lives of hundreds of people, but also
took the fight to the Germans, and she fought alongside the French Resistance.
But she was deadly herself, and organised executions of German Spies, but also killed
an SS man with her bare hands.
The White Mouse was a notorious enemy for the Germans.
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