Nancy Wake

Nancy Wake was a French spy, nicknamed "The White Mouse" for her ability to escape capture, who saved hundreds of Allied solders lives during World War Two. She was born August 12th, 1912 in New Zealand. Her father was a journalist and left their family when she was young. She found work as a nurse for a short time, but soon lost interest in that and became a free-lance journalist in Paris. In the 1930s, she visited Vienna as a journalist and witnessed Nazi gangs beating Jewish people and looting Jewish storefronts.  It was then that she vowed to do anything she could to stop the Nazis from gaining power. She said, “My hatred of the Nazis was very, very deep.” In 1939 she married Henri Fiocca and began escorting Allied soldiers out of France.

In 1943 the Nazi party became aware of her and her husbands criminal activities, so she left France. Her husband, however, decided to stay and was arrested and executed. She joined the British Special Operations Executive and was one of the 39 women who were parachuted into France to prepare for D-Day. She helped create lines of communication between the British forces and the French during the 1944 French Resistance, which was essential for Allied success. Wake was not fond of killing, but when necessary she did what she felt she had to do for the good of her country. She has said that she killed Nazis with her bare hands.



After the war, she was recognized with many awards and was hailed as a hero. She is the most decorated woman who served in World War Two. In 1957 she married for a second time to a retired pilot named John Forward; he died in 1997. Wake died in London at the age of 98 on August 8th, 2011. ‘To be a young woman behind enemy lines, doing what she did, having the courage of her convictions, it’s not something that most people could do. What she did was remarkable,’’ said RSL national president Rear Admiral Ken Doolan.









http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/world/europe/14wake.html?_r=0
http://www.smh.com.au/national/white-mouse-nancy-wake-dies-20110808-1ii2u.html