100 Years Ago Today August 30th, 2012
Nancy Grace Augusta
Wake was born on August 30th, 1912 in Wellington New Zealand. She served as a British agent during the
later part of World War II. She became a leading figure in the maquis groups of
the French Resistance and was one of the Allies' most decorated servicewomen of
the war. In the 1930s she worked in Paris
and later for Hearst newspapers as a European correspondent. She witnessed the
rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement, and "saw roving Nazi gangs
randomly beating Jewish men and women in the streets" of Vienna. After the
fall of France in 1940, she became a courier for the French Resistance and
later joined an escape network. In reference to her ability to elude capture,
the Gestapo called her the White Mouse. She would go to Britain and join the
Special Operations Executive (SOE). Immediately after the war, Nancy was
awarded the George Medal, the
United States Medal of Freedom, the Médaille de la Résistance and thrice the Croix
de Guerre. She learned that the Gestapo had tortured her husband to death in
1943 for refusing to disclose her whereabouts. After the war, she worked for
the Intelligence Department at the British Air Ministry attached to embassies
of Paris and Prague. She died on Sunday evening August 7th 2011 at the age of 98.
