RIP: Nancy Wake

I was very sorry to hear of Nancy Wake's death this morning. She defines the word, 'heroine' to me.
I couple of years ago I read her biography written by Australian author Peter FitzSimons.


This is the type of book that kids should be reading in high school, not Shakespeare or other unrelated works that are out-dated for today's learning (in my humble opinion). 
Unsung heroes and heroines such as Nancy Wake should be household names for what they did to help keep our freedom and liberties.

Nancy Wake by Peter FitzSimons: The number one bestselling biography of Australia′s greatest war heroine - over 84,000 copies sold in its first two formats.

In the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo′s most wanted person.

As a naïve, young journalist, Nancy Wake witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. From that moment, she declared that she would do everything in her power to rid Europe of the Nazis. What began as a courier job here and there became a highly successful escape network for Allied soldiers, perfectly camouflaged by Nancy′s high-society life in Marseille. Her network was soon so successful - and so notorious - that she was forced to flee France to escape the Gestapo, who had dubbed her ′the white mouse′ for her knack of slipping through its traps.

But Nancy was a passionate enemy of the Nazis and refused to stay away. Supplying weapons and training members of a powerful underground fighting force, organising Allied parachute drops, cycling four hundred kilometres across a mountain range to find a new transmitting radio - nothing seemed too difficult in her fight against the Nazis.

Peter FitzSimons reveals Nancy Wake′s compelling story, a tale of an ordinary woman doing extraordinary things. 


Purchase the book from bookstores or from HarperCollins:
http://www.harpercollins.com.au/books/Nancy-Wake-Peter-FitzSimons?isbn=9780732274566&HCHP=TB_Nancy+Wake