US Military Vintage

How ‘Nancy Wake’ used her tactics against Nazi’s in WWII

‘Nancy Grace Augusta Wake – one of the highly decorated Allied secret agents of World War II has passed away in London in the age of 98 years.

Nancy Wake was born on 30th August 1912 in Roseneath, Wellington, Newzeland. When Wake’s age was just 2 years old her parents migrated and then settled in Sydney, Australia, later on her father returned to Newzeland and he did not come back to Sydney again, hence Wake rose inSydney Australia. 

In the age of 16 years she escaped from her home and worked as a nurse for some time. She received 200 pounds with the will of her aunt and the money was spent on traveling to New York and then London. Here she got trained herself as a journalist afterwards in a while she worked as a journalist for Hearst Newspaper as a European correspondent. She was one of the main eyes witnessed of the World War II, who observed the escalation of Adolf Hitler and Nazis as well as she observed the atrocities of the Nazi’s forces towards Jews, blacks and the protestors on the street of Paris and Vienna.

In 1933, being a journalist she interviewed Adolf Hitler in Vienna and then she took a decision to fight against his prejudice which he had against the Jews. On November 30, 1939 she got married with French richest entrepreneur ‘Henri Edmond”, the newlywed couple was residing at Marseille, when German forces occupied France. In 1940 after the defeat of France, she became a herald for the French Resistance – a French Guerilla fighting group that was launched against German under the authority of Captian Ian Garrow.

From here Wake’s life was entered into a defining moment and she had to show her audacity and heroism for liberty and she done well by providing full support regarding intelligence sharing or weapons supplying to the French Resistance. In 1944, she joined British Special Operations and was parachuted into France delivering weapons to French Resistance fighters. She designed a cooperative link between London and local Maquis group which was fought under the command of Captain Henri Tardivat.

The leaders of French Resistance were very concerned about Wake’s dangerous mission because her life was always on risk and the Gestapo (German Secret Service) was tapping her phone calls and creating hurdles in her daily mail. The Gestapo also called her as a nickname the ‘White Mouse’. In 1957 she took another chance for her marriage and she got married withan English Ex-Raf fighter Pilot John Melvin.

She made several efforts to win the parliament seat in Australia but she could not be succeeded. She wrote her an autobiography’s book titling “The White Mouse” which was one of the best selling books of that time.

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