Nancy wake family
- •
Journalist, socialite, secret agent. Nancy Wake’s life story is one packed with intrigue.
From hosting lavish dinner parties with Marseilles’ elite to fighting for the French Resistance in the space of mere months, Wake would then join one of the most secretive and dangerous organisations of World War Two: the SOE.
Fuelled by her abhorrence for Nazism, Wake utilised her magnetic beauty and daring personality to evade capture by the Germans, partaking in spying missions until the end of the war.
Here are 10 facts about the fearless Nancy Wake:
1. She was born in New Zealand in 1912
Born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1912, Nancy Wake was the youngest of the six children of Charles and Ella Wake. The family was of distant Māori descent through Nancy’s great-grandmother Pourewa, who is thought to have been one of the first ever Māori women to marry a European.
Two years after Nancy’s birth, her family moved to Sydney where she would spend her childhood, and was raised largely by her mother after her father deserted the family.
Sydney in 1920
Image Cred
- •
Nancy Wake
Nancy Wake (aka The White Mouse) was the Allies most decorated woman during World War 2, saving thousands of soldiers and eventually becoming the #1 most wanted person by the German Gestapo in 1943. Nancy never believed that women should just stay at home or stand on the sidelines while men went to war and proved herself to be a fantastic leader during the French Resistance, in which pockets of independently organized individuals fought against the Nazi occupation of France in the early 1940's. There have been many movie, television, and written adaptations of her life made, and she has written an autobiography entitled "The White Mouse".
Wake was born in Wellington New Zealand on August 30,1912, significantly younger than her other six siblings. In 1914, soon after her birth her parents made the move from New Zealand to Australia and settled in North Sydney. Nancy's childhood was wrought with poverty and instability, and after a short period her journalist father moved back to New Zealand, abandoning the family under the guise of filming a documen
- •
NANCY WAKE – THE WHITE MOUSE
George Medal – Legion d’Honneur – Croix de Guerre (3 times) – Medaille de la Resistance –Medal of Freedom – Companion of the Order of Australia
by
by Roger Stanton & Martyn Cox
A number of people in the Society will have known Nancy Wake personally. She was a member of ELMS and a great supporter of the Society and its work. Nancy presided over her birthday parties each year, gatherings of a few friends, mainly SOE but on each occasion some ELMS friends too. On one occasion, bereft of any idea about what to take Nancy Wake , I eventually decided upon a wicker basket of preserves, wine, biscuits and fudge. This was all gift-wrapped and I carefully carried it all the way to south London from North Yorkshire by train, without mishap! The day before I left I had visited Eden Camp Museum where I had spotted some white sugar mice, so I had included one on the top of the basket. On seeing the mouse Nancy burst into a smile and said ‘After all these years you still remember!’ The white sugar mouse took pride of place that day.
On the 17 August
Copyright ©armywing.pages.dev 2025