THE WHITE MOUSE THAT ROARED
A Killer’s Instinct
The Nazis code named her The White Mouse, but there was nothing mousy about Nancy Wake.
Combining glam looks with balls to the wall courage, Wake made life hell for invading Nazis in World War II France. “She is the most feminine woman I know, until the fighting starts. Then she is like five men,” said Henri Tardivant, a French resistance fighter among the several thousand men she commanded.
Wake killed Nazis with her bare hands, organized raids to blow up Nazi installations, but was also adept at getting behind Kraut lines using her softer side. She was the Allies go to girl softening up the Germans in advance of their D Day invasion. Wake had the tactical smarts and an unbridled pursuit of justice that burned through her hazel green eyes. She also had a killer’s instinct. The war brought her fame, but also stole the love of her life.
Pissin’ Match
Wake figured out the differences between men and women at an early age and wasn’t about to let any physical shortcomings limit her. She was born in New Zealand and had more Maori warrior in her blood lines than genteel Kiwi. Among the games she played growing up in Sydney Australia was the pissing contest. It was girls vs. boys, a line was drawn in the sand and the winner was determined by who could pee furthest. After losing repeatedly our young heroine adjusted the rules. “It’s not fair, you’ve got a little thing, we don’t have, you’ve got to take a handicap,’’ she told her adversaries. The handicap was to step back a few paces in the sand and after they did, Nancy never lost another match. That early life lesson helped her survive WW II. The Nazis may have had bigger guns, but Nancy had better brains and more courage.
At 16, Nancy was ready to escape Australia and a mother who told her she was ugly. Nancy was ordered to pray every night and fear god, which of course she didn’t. The only thing that kept her awake was her dream of seeing the world. She had a post 1960s mentality that refused to be straight jacked by pre-40s conventions. When her aunt gave her 200 pounds she quit a dead end job in the county insane asylum and headed for Europe.
Lady Killer Overmatched
Touring Europe as a free-lance journalist in the late 1930s young Nancy interviewed rising German chancellor Adolf Hitler but was also drawn to the fast life. She could drink most men under the table and took a different tact in luring the most eligibles. Henri Fiocca was among the most sort after young viriles in pre WW II southern France. He could tango like a Buenos Aires maestro and owned a steel plant in Marseilles. He showed up nightly at the top casinos with several different bombshells by his side. Competitive, Nancy was curious how they landed by the steel magnet’s side and boudoir. “They ring me up,” Fiocca simply told Nancy implying he didn’t have to try too hard. “If you want to speak with me on the phone, Fiocca, you will ring me up!” she told him and left the casino. Fiocca was stunned by her brashness and soon was calling Nancy. They would marry a year later and our heroine found herself living in a luxurious harbor view apartment atop Marseille in Nov. 1939. A socialite life beckoned but Hitler had other ideas.
In her journalistic travels, Wake witnessed the SS’s brutality in Vienna seeing Jews chained to wheels and paraded through the streets. She was ready to fight the Nazis when they invaded France in 1940 and used Fiocca’s fortune to finance her resistance work.
Starting as an ambulance driver, Wake transitioned as a courier helping refugees escape France, meeting them at train stations taking them to safe houses. She learned the key escape routes through the Pyrenees and was a key operative in the burgeoning French underground. The Nazis were on to her taping her phone and following her. They dubbed her the White Mouse because of her stealth and put a 5 million franc reward on her brunette scalp.
Wake had to flee France and made six attempts to get to England. Her journeys through the Pyrenees were a steeplechase of daring do. Despite freezing nights in sheep pens, jumps from moving trains, getting jailed twice and being shot at by kraut patrols she made it to Spain and on to England.
Ready for the Kill
Trained by the British Special Operations Executive at a barracks in Scotland, Wake was given the organizing and killing skills needed to take on the SS. Parachuting back into France with fellow SOE agent John Farmer, Wake’s parachute got hung up in a tree. Tardivant was waiting below and like any sexist Frenchmen of the day couldn’t resist remarking what wonderful fruit the tree had born. “Don’t give me that French shit,” Wake snapped and quickly took control of her unit.
Wake’s band of 3,000 Maquis took on 22,000 Nazi troops who had built sizeable infrastructure in France with the help of the Vichy government. She led a raid on the Gestapo’s headquarters in Montucon and with a quick chop to a sentry’s throat instantly killed him. The raid included blowing up a gun factory. Wake also gained the fear of her men when she coolly executed an SS female spy without blinking.
In several biographies, Wake considered her most daring escapade a 500 kilometer bike ride through several German checkpoints to replace wireless codes that had been destroyed in a German raid. On a 0 speed bike she pedaled non-stop for 71 hours. At one Kraut checkpoint, an officer interrogated her. “Do you want to search moi? Wake asked the flustered sentry who let her pass through. At the end of the ride Wake couldn’t walk or sit but the new codes kept the communication lines open. The Brits resupplied Wake’s fighters with fresh guns and ammo that came in handy when thousands of German troops stormed the Maquis stronghold of Chaudes-Aiguews in June 1944. When the smoke dissipated, 1,400 Germans had died and just 100 Maquis perished.
By the time the war ended, Wake was among the most decorated war heroes. But the fame and honors were tempered by the death of Fiocca at the hands of Nazi interrogators a year before the war ended. He refused to give up his wife’s location and both paid a heavy price.
In many ways Wake’s feistiness and no nonsense approach to sticking it to the power elite was better suited to war than peace. She ran twice for the Australian parliament but lost to entrenched male conservatives who were able to exploit her straight shooting approach. In today’s world, Wake could have been a glass ceiling busting high tech CEO or a presidential candidate but in post war Australia she was limited. She penned her autobiography “The White Mouse” and settled into domesticity after marrying Farmer.
She never had kids but after Farmer’s death moved back to London and sold off her war medals to finance her lifestyle. She lived at the Stafford Hotel, a haunt of service men and women during the war and most days could be found at the hotel bar throwing back scotch and sodas telling war stories to anyone who would listen. She died at 98 in 2011 and her ashes were fittingly dropped by air over the mountains of France where she had fought the good fight.
