29 September 2008

Women: Nancy Wake, The White Mouse

By Anne Whitfield

Nancy Wake is a legendary World War II hero and one I greatly admire.

Her family moved to Australia when Nancy was two. Soon after, her father went back to New Zealand, leaving Nancy's mother to raise her six children. Nancy worked as a nurse until 1932, when an aunt in New Zealand bequeathed her a sum of money which allowed her to fulfill her ambition of travelling to Europe.




The Nazis did not suspect she was a Resistance fighter. Wake said, "I volunteered...not because I'm brave...being a woman I was the only one who could do it. When I got back...I couldn't stand up, I couldn't sit down. I couldn't do anything. I just cried."


After the war she received numerous international honours, including the George Medal, the Croix de Guerre, the Medaille de la Resistance, the Chevalier de Legion d'Honneur and the US Medal of Freedom.

As for how she would like to be remembered, she says she hopes to go down in history as the woman who turned down 7,000 sex-starved Frenchmen, and says: "I got away with blue murder and loved every minute of it."

This is an excellent book on Nancy Wake by Peter Fitzsimons, one I've very much enjoyed.