Nancy Grace During the “Second World War,” Augusta Wake worked for the British “Special Operations Executive.” She was one of the most wanted spies by the “Gestapo.” Wake was called “The White Mouse” by the “Gestapo,” which put a price of 5 million francs on her head. She joined the “French Resistance,” where she was a well-known member of the maquis group. During the war, she was one of the most well-known women who served with the “Allies.” After the fall of France, she worked as a messenger for the “French Resistance.” After a while, she joined the Allied Escape Route Organization and helped hundreds of Allied pilots, soldiers, and prisoners of war who were trying to find a safe way to get from France to Spain. She went to jail, and when she got out, she went to Spain and then England. She became a special agent for the British “Special Operations Executive” when she moved to England. In April 1944, she landed in Auvergne, which was part of occupied France. She was given the job of acting as a link between the Forest of Troncais-based Maquis group, led by Captain Henri Tardivat, and London. She helped the group get ready for an uprising in which 22,000 German soldiers fought 7,000 brave maquis. She has won several awards and medals and has been the subject of many books, a movie, and TV series.
Early years and childhood
She was born in Roseneath, Wellington, New Zealand, on August 30, 1912, to Charles Augustus Wake and Ella Wake. She was their sixth child and the last daughter. Her father was a writer and editor for a newspaper.
In 1914, she moved with her family from New Zealand to North Sydney, Australia. After a while, her father moved back to New Zealand, leaving her mother to raise the kids on her own.
She went to a school in Sydney called “North Sydney Household Arts (Home Science) School.” She left her home around 1928 and moved to a rural part of New South Wales, where she got a job as a nurse. After a few years, she moved back to Sydney and got a job at a shipping company.
After that, she used the £200 she got from her aunt to go to New York and London, where she studied journalism. After that, she moved to Paris and started working as a freelance reporter for the Hearst newspaper group. One of her tasks is to interview Adolf Hitler in 1933. She saw the Nazis beat Jewish men and women in the streets of Vienna, among other horrible things.
Nancy Wake’s Career
She was in Britain when the “Second World War” broke out, but she quickly went back to France. When Germany invaded France, she and her husband were living in Marseilles.
She rushed to help war victims right away. She used her newly bought car as an ambulance and sent goods to refugee camps.
By June 1940, France had to give up Germany. This meant that the French military and government were no longer able to do their jobs. Wake became a part of the “French Resistance” and worked as a messenger for them. She also joined Captain Ian Garrow’s network of people trying to get away.
The Gestapo was always on the lookout for her. They tapped her phone and stopped her mail. They called her “The White Mouse” because she was so good at getting away from them.
As “Operation Torch,” the British and American invasion, got underway in November 1942, the “Wehrmacht,” the unified German army, took over the southern part of France. This gave the Nazis free access to the documents of the Vichy regime, which made Wake’s life more at risk.
By 1943, Wake was the person the “Gestapo” wanted most. They put a price on her head of 5 million francs. After she got out of Marseilles, the Gestapo took her husband, Henri Fiocca, and tortured and killed him. She didn’t find out about this until after the war was over. She was arrested in Toulouse, but after a few days, she was let go.
After her sixth attempt to cross the Pyrenees Mountains, she moved to Spain. When she got to Britain, she became a member of the “Special Operations Executive,” which is secret service.
There, she learned how to fight with and without weapons, how to use explosives, how to survive, how to keep watch, how to use Morse Code and radios, and how to parachute at night. She was a captain in the “First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.”
On the night of April 29/30, 1944, she landed in Auvergne, a part of France that was occupied by the Nazis. She was told to act as a link between the local maquis group, led by Captain Henri Tardivat and based in the Forest of Troncais, and London.
She was known as Madame Andrée, and she was in charge of the group’s finances, making sure that weapons and equipment dropped by parachute were given to the right people, and making sure that radio contact was kept.
She was very important in bringing in new members and getting the group ready to become a strong force of about 7,000 maquisards. Under her direction, the group attacked enemy bases and their local headquarters in Montlucon. They fought against about 22,000 German soldiers, and there were 1,400 deaths on their side and only 100 on the German side.
When a German raid caused radio codes to be lost, which made it hard to get supplies dropped, Wake rode his bike over 500 km and through several German checkpoints.
After the war, in 1946, she worked as an executive officer for the British Air Ministry’s “Intelligence Department,” which had links to embassies in Paris and Prague. In 1948, she quit and moved to Sydney.
In 1949, she ran as a member of the “Liberal Party” for the seat of Barton in the Australian federal election, but she lost to the “Labor Party” candidate, Herbert Vere Evatt. In 1951, she had the same thing happen to her.
After the election in 1951, she left Australia and moved to England. There, she worked as an intelligence officer for the office of the Assistant Chief of Air Staff. After she got married to RAF officer John Forward in December 1957, she quit her job and moved to Malta with him.
Early in 1960, she moved back to Australia. In 1966, she ran as a “Liberal Party” candidate for the Sydney seat of Kingsford Smith in the federal election, but she lost.
In the middle of the 1980s, she and her husband moved to Port Macquarie, New South Wales, to retire. In 1985, her autobiography, “The White Mouse,” which became a best-seller, came out.
She left Australia for good in 2001 and moved to London, where she lived at the Stafford Hotel in St. James’ Place.
She moved to Richmond in 2003 and lived at the “Royal Star and Garter Home for Disabled Ex-Service Men and Women” for the rest of her life.
Personal History and Legacies
She got married to the wealthy French industrialist Henri Edmond Fiocca on November 30, 1939. They had nothing to say. During the Second World War, the Germans got hold of Fiocca and killed him.
She got married to RAF officer John Forward in December 1957.
On August 7, 2011, she passed away. On March 11, 2013, her ashes were spread near the village of Vernix, which is near Montlucon, as she had asked.
Estimated Net worth
Nancy is one of the wealthiest War Heroes and is on the list of the most well-known War Heroes. Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider all say that Nancy Wake has a net worth of about $1.5 million.
Trivia
She became a “Chevalier” of the “Legion of Honour” in 1970. In 1988, she got a promotion and became an “Officer of the Legion of Honour.”