"Don't you dare write one of those miserable war books full of horror." Nancy Wake told Russel! Braddon when he had at last, succeeded in dragging the story out of her.
"My war was full of laughter and people I loved." It was a remark typical of one of the greatest heroines of the war: a girl who consistently and successfully thumbed her nose at the Nazis in Occupied France throughout the war years; it was also a command, and Nancy Wake was accustomed to having her orders obeyed. Russell Braddon, famous author of The Naked Island and Cheshire V.C.. has told her story as she wanted it told, with a lighthearted dissimulation of every fantastic exploit, with an eye always open for the odd situations which inevitably developed when one pretty girl found herself in control of thousands of tough French guerillas.
Nancy Wake was born an Australasian.
By the time she was twenty-two she had a flat in Paris, making a bare living from journalism. Twelve months later in November
1939 she married a wealthy Frenchman in Marseille, and soon became one of the creators of the escape route to Spain which fed back to freedom more than a thousand trapped men and women.
By the time the Germans occupied Marseille she was already known as "The White Mouse", and the South of France became too hot to hold her.
She got to England by her own escape route and joined Colonel Buckmaster's organization for training as a saboteur in France. Parachuted into the Auvergne with a million francs in her handbag and instructions to
organize all the Maquis in the area, she soon virtually commanded more than 7,000 men. No sector in the whole of France gave the Nazis more trouble than Nancy
Wake's; pitched battles were fought; 22,000 troops with artillery, mortars and dive bombers were thrown against them in one attempt to stop their wrecking operations.
Though she took every risk under the sun, Nancy Wake was never caught. She lived to lead her Maquisards into Vichy; she lived to receive the George Medal from a grateful Britain, three Croix de Guerre and the coveted Resistance Medal from France, and the Medal of Freedom from America.
After the war she returned to
Australia for the first time since her teenage days, was persuaded to enter politics and, in the election of 195l, completely shattered the previous 23,000 majority of her eminent opponent, Dr. Evatt, Leader of the Opposition.
He limped home with a majority of 127.
Nancy Wake was born to be a leader of men. Her story
is a tale to thrill a nation.