![\"Black](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/nancywake28194529.jpg\" "\\"nancywake\\"")
<\/a>Nancy Wake c.1945<\/p><\/div>\n
Well, if you\u2019re
Nancy Wake<\/strong> you cycle alone across 500km of enemy territory in
order to find replacements. Who was Nancy Wake and what made her so
astonishingly badass? Let\u2019s step back to the start of World War II to
find out.<\/p>\n
A New Zealand-born nurse, Wake had travelled the world before settling in
France in the 1930s. At the start of the war she was living with her new
husband, industrialist Henri Fiocca, in the hills outside Marseille.
Within months this would be occupied territory as Western Europe fell to
the rapid advance of Nazi forces.<\/p>\n
With a continent falling to the horrors of war, and possessing sufficient
money to live comfortably anywhere in the world, many of us might say
\u201chmm, perhaps it\u2019s time to move to America.\u201d Many of us
might choose to keep our heads down, live the life of a wealthy socialite
\u2013 a relatively safe course of action even in wartime. But not Nancy
Wake. She became involved in the Resistance, delivering supplies and
acting as a courier, purchasing a vehicle to serve as an ambulance for the
care of refugees. Wake became more deeply involved with the Resistance as
the war continued, becoming a key figure in the escape lines that helped
smuggle escapees, downed airmen and Dunkirk survivors over the Pyrenees
and into Spain. (And here it should be noted that Wake was far from the
only woman to go to extraordinary risks to save the lives of escapees. Andr\u00e9e de
Jongh<\/a> of the Belgian Com\u00e8te Line and countless others performed
acts of extraordinary heroism to do what they saw as a necessary
task.)<\/p>\n
At rough estimate, the work of Wake and the rest of her escape line
organisation lead to as many as a thousand people being safely smuggled
out of France between the start of the war and 1943. But she didn\u2019t
stop there.<\/p>\n
You see, it turned out the Gestapo didn\u2019t approve of resistance
movements or helping escaping prisoners. So strongly did they disapprove
of such behaviour that by 1943 they had Wake (codenamed \u2018The White
Mouse\u2019 for her ability to evade capture) listed at the top of their
most wanted list, with a five million franc reward for her capture.
There\u2019s a curious sort of honour in being recognised as the
Gestapo\u2019s most wanted person, the scary sort of honour that would see
most people go to ground and stop risking themselves. But not, as
you\u2019ve probably guessed by now, Nancy Wake. It would take the
betrayal of her cell, her near capture, and the insistence of her fellow
resistance members to get her to finally escape over the Pyrenees and
safely to England via Spain. Along the way she endured four days of
interrogation at the hands of the Vichy French in Toulouse, and walked
away from that as if it were hardly even worth noting.<\/p>\n
So, you\u2019ve spent the last several years of your life helping escaping
prisoners. You\u2019ve narrowly avoided capture on more than one occasion,
been arrested, interrogated, and hunted by the Gestapo. After a grueling
journey you\u2019re finally safe in Britain. This is where you stop, say
to yourself \u201cright, I achieved some amazing things, time to relax and
let someone else finish things up,\u201d yes?<\/p>\n
No, of course not. What you do now, assuming you\u2019re a solid brass
badass like Nancy Wake, is join the Special Operations Executive. And
then, after a scant few months of training you parachute back into
Auvergne in central France and begin organising a guerilla warfare
movement. After all, someone has to pave the way for the D-Day
landings.<\/p>\n
On this second round in France, now under operating under the aegis of the
SOE, Wake and other men and women of the SOE led a 7,000 strong group of
\u2018Maquis\u2019<\/a>,
or freedom fighters. It was during this time that Wake made her marathon
bike ride to retrieve the radio codes. In between gruelling cross country
bike rides and organising supply drops, she also found time to lead covert
attacks on Gestapo headquarters at Montlucon, and to launch a strike on
the SS 2nd Panzer Division which reportedly drew such ire that the
division sent fully 15,000 troops after Wake and her Maquis. As with all
the previous challenges, she wasn’t put off by a mere Panzer
division coming after her.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Nancy Wake] is the most feminine woman I know, until the fighting
starts. Then, she is like five men.”<\/p>\n
– Henri Tardive, fellow Resistance member<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So, by the end of the war in Europe Wake had been responsible for the
provision of aid to refugees, the saving of hundreds of escapees\u2019
lives, and a series of daring acts of heroism that could keep war film
writers in business for decades. All of this done in the face of
countless risk, and why? Because it needed doing, and she was in a
position to do it, so she was damn well going to. It took 59 years for
her own government to recognise her service and appoint her a Companion
of the Order of Australia in honour of her achievements.<\/p>\n
“I hate wars and violence, but if they come I don’t see
why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit
them balaclavas.”<\/p>\n –
Nancy Wake<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n (As a
final note, Wake is only one of many women whose valorous acts in
World War II are worthy of note. The SOE had 39 women serving in
France alone. Odette Samson<\/strong><\/a>, Lyubov Shevtsova<\/strong><\/a>, and Madeleine Damerment<\/strong> <\/a>are just some of the many
others whose stories are worth knowing.)<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\nGuest blogger Rob Mulligan blogs at
Stuttering Demagogue.<\/strong><\/a>
<\/strong>Stay tuned for future Heroes.
<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n