In honour of women’s history month, every day in March, I’ll be highlighting a woman who changed the world.
Today’s woman is Nancy Wake, a secret agent who tirelessly worked for the French Resistance in the Second World War.
Name: Nancy Wake
Born: 30th August 1912 in Wellington, New Zealand
Died: 7th August 2011
Known as: The White Mouse (by the Gestapo due to her constant evasion of capture.)
Iconic for: Her determination and fearlessness in fighting the Nazi’s and, on one occasion, killing one with her bare hands (I’m not one to condone violence but Nazis are definitely the exception.)
Life summary: Wake’s independent spirit can be seen from her beginnings; she ran away from home at aged sixteen to become a nurse and then, in a time when reporting was still male-dominated, trained in London to become a journalist before working for Hearst in Paris as a foreign correspondent. Living in France, and a visit to to Vienna and Berlin, allowed her to see the rise of the Nazi’s and the resulting anti-semitism first hand, creating in her a violent hatred for the group.
Wake married a French industrialist in 1937 and lived in the country when the Nazi’s invaded. She served as an ambulance driver in the war in France and, once it fell to the Nazi’s, her and her husband became huge members of the French resistance. Nancy became a courier, carrying incriminating documents through France. This was an extremely dangerous job and one often given to women as they were more easily underestimated. She joined an escape network which worked to smuggle Allied internees, Jews and prisoners of wars out of France. She was very good at it, so good that the Gestapo became suspicious and, in 1943, a 5 million franc reward was put on her head making her the Gestapo’s most wanted person. Wake successfully escaped into neutral Spain despite a brief capture whilst trying to get out of France but her husband was less lucky. Captured and tortured for information about her whereabouts, he was killed after refusing to give her up. This was a tragedy that Wake would never forgive herself for once she found out, which was only after the liberation of France.
In Britain, Wake joined the Special Operations Executive, a group committed to espionage, reconnaissance and sabotage within occupied Europe. She was dedicated to the cause, parachuting into France where she became a liason between Britain and the French Resistance Groups known as Maquis groups, becoming the chief organiser of more than 7000 maquisards. She organised parachute drops of equipment and weapons, recruited members, organised attacks on bridges, German convoys and railway lines. Her organisational skills were so successful that her Maquis groups were responsible for 70% of German deaths at the hands of the French Resistance during the Liberation of France and only 1% of the French Resistance fighters killed. In one mission, she fought and killed a Nazi with her bare hands in order to stop him pulling the alarm during a raid.
After the end of the war she received numerous medals for the work she did. She went on to work for the intelligence department in the British Air Ministry and became involved in politics, running as a liberal candidate several times in the Australian elections.
Quote: ‘I hate wars and violence but if they come then I don’t see why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit them balaclavas.’
Crackle 