Nancy Wake 'the White Mouse' died aged 98

[kiwi_2005]

New Zealand-born Nancy Wake - a hero of the World War II resistance movement - has died aged 98. Ms Wake died on Sunday in hospital in London where she had lived since 2001. She was three weeks short of her 99th birthday.

She was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2004, and was Australia's most decorated World War II servicewoman. Born in New Zealand on August 30, 1912, Ms Wake grew up in Sydney when her family moved to Australia when she was one years old.

In her 20s she travelled to Europe where she witnessed Hitler's Nazis persecute the Jews and blacks in the 1930s in Vienna and Paris. When France was occupied by the Nazis in 1940 she and her French husband Henri Fiocca became active in the resistance movement. Ms Wake saved thousands of Allied lives by setting up escape routes and sabotaging German installations. Trained as a spy by the British, she led 7000 resistance fighters in D-Day preparations and was on top of the Gestapo's most wanted list.

Called the White Mouse by the Germans because of her ability to evade capture, Ms Wake learned at the end of the war that Fiocca was tortured and killed in 1943. She married RAF fighter pilot John Forward in 1957 and returned to Australia with him but returned to England to live in 2001, four years after his death.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news...ectid=10743730

[Sailor Steve]

Wow, what a gal! Rest in the knowledge that you are revered, Ms Wake.

[mobucks]

well said, steve.

what a gal.

[frau kaleun]

RIP, Ms. Wake.

[Castout]

Great way to live is to use it for a cause worthy of every sacrifice. She certainly had had hers.

RIP.

An extraordinary woman RIP

[FIREWALL]

What a fantastic lady.

p.s. I hope a Bio and a movie is done on her life.