Wake and Fiocca joined the fledgling Resistance after France's surrender in 1940. Witnesses to the rise of fascism in Europe, Wake and her wealthy industrialist husband Henri Fiocca joined the fledgling Resistance after France's surrender in 1940. The White Mouse That Roared. For two years they worked as couriers for the resistance, later becoming part of an escape network to get downed Allied soldiers back to safety. She was living in Marseille, France when Germany invaded. Wake and Fiocca joined the fledgling Resistance after France’s surrender in 1940. Once in Britain, Nancy Wake joined the Special Operatives Executives and was trained in several combat and intelligence programs. She herself led several attacks on the Gestapo in Montluçon and at one point offered to personally execute a German spy that her men were too scared to kill themselves. When she was picked up on a train outside of Toulouse, she spun a wild tale of deceit, claiming she had to be let go because she was the mistress of one of the guards and that she had to conceal her identity from her husband. She was a strong opposer to the Nazi beliefs. Rather than leave her home, Nancy Wake remained in Paris and joined the French Resistance with her husband, Henri Fiocca, a wealthy French industrialist. Nancy Wake is an Australian-made mini-series portraying the wartime exploits of Nancy Wake, one of the most decorated Allied servicewomen during World War II. As he looked up at her hanging from the branches, he remarked on her beauty. Immediately, she vowed to oppose Hitler by whatever means necessary. In addition to killing a man with her bare hands, Wake further proved her devotion to the resistance when she rode 380 miles round trip on a bicycle through German checkpoints, to transfer a message from her resistance group to another, all within a 72 hour period. In 1940, the Nazis invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. Other : 1944-04 Six months before Germany invaded France, Wake married Henri Fiocca in November of 1939. When the network was betrayed that same year she decided to flee France. Wake, who’d gotten stuck in the tree after parachuting from a B-24 bomber, was armed with classified documents. In Paris Nancy’s independent spirit and good looks caught the eye of the rich industrialist Henri Fiocca, from Marseille, who she later married. As an investigating SS sentry was about to raise the alarm and give her and her crew away, Wake killed the guard with her bare hands. After she managed to escape Marseilles, the Gestapo got hold of her husband Henri Fiocca, who was tortured and killed, which she came to know only after the war ended. With Europe on the brink of war, they fall desperately in love and are married as Hitler begins his relentless march oh Holland and Belgium. In 1939 Nancy married French industrialist Henri Fiocca who was killed during the War. Nancy ran away from home at the age of 16 and found work as a nurse, but a windfall enabled her to leave Australia for Europe in 1932. In 1937, Wake met wealthy French industrialist Henri Edmond Fiocca (1898–1943), whom she married on 30 November 1939. I was really surprised.”. When war broke out she trained as an ambulance driver. The Gestapo knew, in part, of the resistance occurring right under their noses and were working tirelessly to stop it, searching Wake’s mail and staking out her home. “They’d taught this judo-chop stuff with the flat of the hand at SOE, and I practiced away at it,” she said later, recalling the incident. “He was the love of my life.” Together they had a charmed and sophisticated life of travel, dinner parties, champagne and caviar, residing in a luxury apartment on a hill overlooking Marseilles and its harbour. Nancy payed off prison guards to free prisoners and shuttled people from place to place. In deference to Wake's ability to elude capture, the Gestapo called her the 'White Mouse'. By 1942, the Gestapo had put her at the top of their most wanted list, offering a five million franc prize for her capture, dead or alive. Working throughout Europe, Nancy developed an antipathy to the Nazis from her observations in Vienna during the mid 1930s; married to a Frenchman named Henri Fiocca, she offered her services to the Allies and was initially tasked with maintaining an escape route for French aviators attempting to get into Spain. Father And Daughter Arrested For Grossest Thing Imaginable, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. Source: http://www.nzedge.com/legends/warriors/nancy-wake/. On her way to Britain, Wake earned her nickname of the White Mouse as she evaded capture by SS guards and Gestapo officers several times. Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, AC, GM (30 August 1912 – 7 August 2011) (also known as Nancy Fiocca) was a New Zealand-born nurse and journalist who joined the French Resistance and later the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II, and briefly pursued a post-war career as an intelligence officer in the Air Ministry. For two years they worked as couriers for the resistance, later becoming part of an escape network to … Katie Serena is a New York City-based writer and a staff writer at All That's Interesting. She was arrested in Toulouse but released in a few days. While working as a freelancer for a Parisian newspaper, the Australian expatriate was asked to travel to Vienna to interview the new German Chancellor – a man named Adolf Hitler. 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