Nancy Wake

Nancy Wake was a brilliant student, with a difficult home life. She ran away twice and ended up in France. At the age of 23 she met and married Henri Fiocca, a wealthy man fourteen years her senior. They led a posh life in Marseille until the war broke out, and Nancy began working for the resistance. At first, she simply helped people on the run, but she became increasingly involved as a courier and helped British airmen escape from German prisons. Eventually, however, the Gestapo began following the agent they called The White Mouse, and, Nancy's devoted husband decided that she must leave France for her own safety.

This was a turning point for Nancy, because after this she was always on the run and always completely committed to the show more Resistance. It took her six attempts, but she finally made it out of France. Nancy became one of only thirty-nine women to join the SOE and, after some training, parachuted back into France. At one point, she was the British liaison for over 7000 Marquis. She proved to be daring, brave, and incredibly lucky.

I first heard about Nancy Wake in the context of a different biography, a new one by Peter FitzSimons. However, when I looked at reviews of the two books, the older, Braddon biography received better reviews. Certainly Braddon had a leg up on FitzSimons, in that he interviewed Nancy Wake himself. He was also completely enamored with her, which may have colored his treatment of her story. Despite the potential bias, Nancy Wake was an amazing person and her story is colorful and full. show less

This is an interesting true story about a special and brave woman. I don't think Braddon did much research. The dedication is written by Wake and it seems to me that it was dictated by Wake and then reworked and polished into a coherent book by Braddon, although Braddon says it was a result of interviews where he had to pull the information out of her bit by bit. He also interviewed a few of her comrades who are quoted from time to time, but there are no footnotes.

One thing that really bothered me, and this is a spoiler, so if that concerns you, stop reading now. Except for when Nancy had that dream, which was fairly early on in her work as an agent for SOE, there was no further mention of Henri, her husband, until almost the end of show more the book, and it seems from the way it was told that there really was no contact at all between them during the period when she worked with the Maquis. Now, writing letters may not have been feasible, I don't know, but Nancy worked for SOE and they had agents all over France. She could easily have asked them for information about her husband in Marseille, was he OK, etc., but apparently she never did. That brought her down one big notch in my estimation. show less

A wonderful story about a wonderful hero of the second world war. Her courage is an inspiration and it is surprising there is so little published about this woman's amazing life.

A fascinating biography of a very brave and inspiring person to whom very many owe their lives. To those interested in France both Occupied and Vichy France this biography will be very interesting.

Russell Braddon writes a very sympathetic, gentle biography. This is inspiring.

A biography of someone who is, at the time of writing, probably the Greatest Living Australian. Scarcely believable.