Tuesday, August 23, 2011

La Souris Blanche RIP (by res ipsa)

I am reading the obituaries again.

Today I read one for Nancy Wake, Proud Spy and Nazi Foe, who died on August 8th.

In April 1944, when [Wake] was 31, she was among 39 women and 430 men who were parachuted into France to help with preparations for D-Day.

There she collected night parachute drops of weapons and ammunition and hid them in storage caches for the advancing allied armies, set up wireless communication with England and harassed the enemy.

“I was never afraid,” she said. “I was too busy to be afraid.”
She sounds like a badass. With a sense of humor:

Film and television producers have used Ms. Wake’s early life as the basis for various works, and she generally approved of them, except for those suggesting that she had love affairs during the war.

She did not have affairs, she insisted in a 1987 Australian documentary.

“And in my old age, I regret it,” she said. “But you see, if I had accommodated one man, the word would have spread around, and I would have had to accommodate the whole damn lot!”

According to her Wikipedia page, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person in 1943. They called her "The White Mouse" because of her ability to elude capture. RIP.