‘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 in Sydney 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’.
From April 1944 to the complete independence of France her 7,000 Maquisards, 22,000 SS soldiers fought against Nazis forces with full courage and they severely damaged their installation as well as their soldiers. Once her French colleague admired her fighting determination with full demonstration and told that once she killed a SS guard by pushing her hand’s fingers on his throat only because of that he was moving up the fears during a raid. Another time replacing codes, her wireless operator had been enforced to tear down in a German attack Wake had to ride a bicycle for at least 800 KM throughout various German checkpoints.
Once Wake had said during wartime “Freedom is my only objective and if I assassinated in an attempt by the enemies obtaining freedom that didn’t not matter because without freedom there is no mean to live’.
At the end of the World War II she was awarded by the French government with highest prestigious award the Legion D’Honneur, George Medal from UK and Medal of Freedom from the United States but she was not awarded with a single medal by the Australian or Newzeland government. She joined the British Air Ministry in its intelligence department and she was remained attach with the British Embassies in France and Prague.
In 1957 she took another chance for her marriage and she got married with an 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.
0 comments:
Post a Comment