Nancy Wake: Enemy Of The Reich | French Resistance Documentary | Timeline

[Music] critical foreign policy meetings to stave off war in europe came to a halt on a marseille street today when king alexander of yugoslavia was assassinated by a lone gunman the assassin was quickly sliced down by a saber-carrying horse guard then set upon by the angry crowd in the pandemonium it was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth she said my war was filled with love and laughter yes there were deaths yes there were tears but love and laughter and she just you know she was a flower that bloomed in water i was a kiwi girl in a hurry yes this is nancy wake in marseille a world away from home far from new zealand far from australia this was just the beginning soon i'd be a spoiled french society wife a german-hating resistance fighter the nazi's most wanted woman code named the white mouse and a hard-drinking foul-mouthed special agent trained to kill could this really be my story if you told me then i'd have said you were bloody dreaming [Music] she made the best of the war and the war made the best of her i mean they got they got a lot from nancy wake she was uh she was the real deal so there she is um drop dead gorgeous new zealand australian woman learning french working working as a journalist so she'd strut up and down the boulevards and go to the restaurants and she formed great friendships with her fellow journalists most of whom were men who looked after her and you know the french have always valued no joke a gorgeous woman of whom she was one so then i ran back to my hotel and typed up the story right place right time you're born lucky nancy born to attract trouble same thing isn't it someone that runs away from home at 16 and makes their life for themselves and teaches themselves to be a journalist in europe and teaches themselves a foreign language i think that's a pretty self-contained kind of person excuse me my mozilla i've seen you somewhere before i think that's where i stay when i'm working yes i'll never forget her beautiful face i'm honorary fiocca nancy white and you're from new zealand originally you're a long way from home then you it's nancy and actually i'm quite at home right here my telephone number next time you're not here i'll be there next week so hello convenient but i don't ring gentlemen miss you fiocca gentlemen ring me call it my foreign policy [Music] if she loved paris she even more loved the riviera the first time she went was in the late 1930s went down to marseille and it was like who's been keeping this a secret the mediterranean the villas the chateaus the beautiful people la belmonde and she absolutely adored the whole thing she described herself as a giddy young thing but i don't think she was that giddy she always struck me as the kind of woman who knew what she wanted and she knew how to get it bonjour you have a visitor how did you know i was here you are staying a week that i'm off vienna berlin why you must have heard what's happening i want to get the story first hand get a look at de fulo why you others can go let them and miss the action what possible reason would [Applause] maybe i should have listened to even as a journalist it made me feel sick to my stomach i'd only just arrived and i was desperate to leave again everyone around me was completely mesmerized their eyes glazed over their breathing seemed to stop it fired her up everything she saw about nazism just absolutely in her it reviled her soul she was appalled by everything she saw of it and you know she made the vow if i ever get a chance to do something i will at one point she goes to austria and she sees firsthand the way the jews are being mistreated and there was at one point she on the cobbled streets of vienna she saw a jewish man who his major crime was being jewish when he was being beaten by a storm trooper and that just absolutely made nancy's blood [Music] it was at that point she realized just how brutal the nazis were and that she along with others would have to do something about it [Music] rich and powerful my she has landed on her feet born lucky didn't i tell you it's micheline what's with the old sarapus henry's father he thinks nancy is travel tried everything to break them up as if he had a chance nancy adored henry um i think marrying him to an extent was a means to an end for her because it gave her a degree of social status and connections within polite marseille society he couldn't have heard that he was a very very wealthy man and when they when they when they got married she had a staff a household staff of five five people making the dinner and you know cleaning the house and driving her around and from memory she would have baths of milk you know that kind of thing and would sometimes you know would frequently arise at 10 and so you know i will have my lunch on the patio [Music] foreign such a mistake and at what price look nancy was a good hiker so he could have hided first ride she could have hid it for new zealand she could have been the australian champion of hating and in those years the person she hated most was henry's father and he said to juan reid beautiful women you've got a dozen of them why pick this one and nancy sensed that from the very beginning my husband is a gentleman and a gentleman his father on the other hand is an ass happy days kid look if i can be an amateur psychologist for a moment and try and form up some idea of what formed this woman when she was four or five years old her father abandoned the family she always came back to that her dear daddy that she used to wait at the garden gate for daddy to come home every day and then she'd sit in his lap and he'd read to her and she'd cuddle him and he'd cuddle her and there was all this sort of love and then bang where's daddy he's gone when's he coming back he's not and that really powerfully affected her the invasion of france was a huge moment of incredible trauma for the french because they had been led to believe throughout the period between the wars that that they would win quite easily people suddenly realized the government had lied to us about everything they started pouring out of paris no one knew what was going on except that the germans were advancing rapidly so i think for people like nancy it was a probably very very troubling moment because knowing what to do in that context which was completely unexpected and that nobody had really been prepared for what can you do they won't take you as a nurse if tried yes but they're desperate for more ambulances and drivers you've got trucks at the factory convert one for me and i'll drive it to the belgian front it won't cost you much huh lonnie you eat money like no one else i know give me a truck you don't even know to drive i can learn you don't have to do anything why are you so they turn me there because you'll be off fighting and i'll be stuck here by myself with nothing to do but worry about you miss you give me my ambulance dirty tactics madame fiocca you'd be surprised what i'd do for a good cause show me she had the means to cocoon herself from the war she did not need to get involved in the war the germans were not going to down in that part of france initially were not going to be occupying that part of france she had no need but nancy became involved very early on [Music] [Music] if you stay here after marshall peter had who was the hero of the first world war had basically sued for peace with hitler and said you know we've got to throw in our lot we've got to collaborate so much for joie de blasio i cried for a week when the armistice was signed i wasn't fooled and anyone else with half a brain was in floods our freedom everything we stood for had been dashed away with the stroke of a pin there's only one man general de gaulle who refuses to accept the idea of an armistice and sets himself up in london and does this extraordinary speech on the 18th of june the day after peters calling for the flame of resistance to not to go out they called de gaulle a defector a general who'd run away to england they could call him what they damn well liked all i knew was he was speaking my language she became involved bit by bit with a scot by the name of ian garrow who organised helped organise the local resistance movement and what he what what he asked her to do initially she was asked can you take this when you go to khan the next time can you take this small package she didn't ask what the package was he didn't tell her but she delivers it and there is this nascent resistance movement just just getting on its feet through france and she became progressively more involved simple this is ridiculous we can support the goal in other ways i have money transport factories yes we'll use those too but this is my chance to do something you already did you drove an ambulance yes for five minutes while you fought at the front line in two wars oh mother just not a competition well no not anymore sorry garrow carry on what else once the radio parts are hidden it's really a matter of courage passing the german checkpoints all right it's not all right you should never have been asked to do this but i was you can't make me say no i'm asking you to be reasonable and it's unreasonable to want to help liberate france nonny please i'm doing it whether you like it or not so you might as well shut up about it listen to yourself resistance is no place for rich spoiled temperamental women no no place at all which is exactly why they want me if she goes out there if you go out there put that stuff in your carts they'll find it you'll be dragged away i'll never see you again is that what you want that won't happen i think for nancy the thrill of the chase was was half of the fun um she certainly wanted to fight the good fight but also the idea of doing something under the radar out foxing the nazis that would have been part of the thrill for her checkpoints don't have a barricade across the road and there'd be swarthy german men with guns on their guard and they're looking for the enemy and what is the enemy going to look like well it's going to look a bit like them it's going to be men with guns and there's a there's a beautiful beautiful floor line going past where these men where are these men with guns and that was and nancy always felt that her sexiness uh her attractiveness was a was perhaps her greatest weapon that that she had that she didn't look like the germans thought an enemy should look like she wasn't fearful of being caught which is remarkable so she she backed herself against you know the gestapo or the police or anybody else that was after her she thought she could outwit them she thought she could talk away out of trouble and she never stopped to think about the risks packages and radio parts were all links in a secret chain that smuggled prisoners and soldiers down the escape lines and out of france we knew that every man we got home was a thorn in hitler's side and it felt fantastic the escape lines really began in the north of france and in belgium to little extent in holland whereby quite a lot of soldiers from the british army were left behind and needed to escape and then when the bombing of germany began and some of the crews had to bail out and land in occupied europe then the local population in part was at great pains to try and get them to safety nancy joined an escape line which was one of the best of all most effective of all it was run by a man who took the name of pat o'leary who had set up an arrangement to smuggle people out either across the um the mediterranean to spain or over the pyrenees into spain nice to meet you here you're close feel free to get in here here is your passport there now a lot of things needed to be done someone had to go and collect them from a safe house and bring them to another safe house and then take them from the safe house to hand them over to someone else who would hand them over to a guide they would have had to be very organized they would have had to have a had a system whereby when these airmen turned up they had a place they put them they had people who were coming in in the hat out of the house who knew how to deal with that who knew when and how to talk about it nancy's role was really as a courier in all this and she really was if you like the gopher a very effective gopher for the pat line something to remember is fine [Music] there were german agents all over the place of course good luck nancy but she really wanted to be into the action and into it as fully as possible and i have no doubt having studied her personality from the beginning that she was extremely active and was seeking pat o'leary's permission to do more and more in the past line she was the kind of woman who could read situations and read people um read people's reactions to her she obviously knew how to play certain situations to her advantage she had this kind of intuition garrow at one point brought another man to her home his name was paul cole hello garo good afternoon madame fiocca i hope you don't mind us calling unannounced i'd like to introduce mister i don't care who that man is he's not welcome here i beg your pardon you heard me please leave now why why i asked you to leave do i have to throw you out myself fine i'm going crazy [ __ ] why'd you even bring me here and don't come back where the hell did you do that you saw him sitting in henry's chair drinking his whiskey who does that man think he is he fought at dunkirk he risked his life to save others i find that hard to believe i was vetted by leery damn paul cole might not have the kind of manners that you like but he deserves your respect and your help you can't treat him like that this is my home i will treat him how i bloody well like not if you want to work for us your choice you can sing his praises till kingdom come i don't like paul cole i don't trust him i won't help him get out of france i don't want anything to do with him if nancy didn't like you you'd certainly know about it she had the kind of personality that would flick on and off like a light switch so i mean if there was somebody in the house who she thought was a collaborator or an informer um she would have sniffed them out pretty quickly forted dunkirk my foot cole was a coward a thief and a gestapo spy he betrayed garrow and 50 others but he never even mentioned my name to him i was just some silly spoiled clueless woman so he forgot all about me i think the coal episode was seminal and i think that that confirmed in her my instincts are good if in doubt back me back my own back my own feelings on things late in 42 life in the marseille resistance turned tits up thousands of nazi troops stormed into the south tightening their grip on power and a savage new police was formed to target jews and the resistance the middle east they were vicious and they were french i hated them even more than i hated the gestapo if they were caught by the germans they would be most likely interrogated pretty brutally and then either shot or sent to a concentration camp where this conditions were of course filed [Music] the germans had a code name for her they were aware that there was this woman working against them a beautiful woman they would hear tell of and it seemed that every time they had her cornered she would get away and they called her the white mouse but it was also clear that sooner or later they really were going to come to her because the germans became more and more aware of her activities things became hotter and hotter [Music] my instincts began humming then one day my friend a cafe owner on the corner whispered a warning nancy this morning you were followed you have to get out use the escape line go to england what about you if they suspect me i'll be fine i'll follow you later when i'm sure the business can survive without me i have to think of my father my workers their families these are bad times i have a duty you understand of course i do i know the man i married i don't want to run away either i feel like a coward no this is a tactical retreat any clever white mouse would do i it can't believe i have a code name in berlin a code name it does here you're on the nazi's most wanted list it's enough nani now take this your lucky five pound note isn't that what you call it it's only lucky if i get to spend it on you as soon as you get to london send me word i'll be there when i can was always up front with me that you know the love of my life was my first husband only fiocca and so to have left him under those circumstances was a bitter blow because you know where she wanted to be she wanted to be with only she wanted to be madame fiocca she said she was heartbroken and she was also worried about what might happen if she disappeared but at the same time if both she and henry left at the same time then that would have been instantly suspicious enjoy your shopping buy something i like don't i always henry i know you won't be faithful to me while i'm away and nothing i can say will make you faithful but i want you to know i will never ask do you have to promise me that you won't ask me either [Music] why are you saying this to me now are you trying to make me jealous it's because it's wartime i don't know what's gonna happen i love you bye my darling see you soon it's a love story but it's a french love story in any other country like he'd be faithful and she'd be faithful in a french love story they loved each other was he faithful no he's french okay that's the way it is and nancy realised pretty early on that he was not being faithful to her but you know as was the habit of the day she more or less accepted it she left henri in a pretty bad circumstances he volunteered to stay behind and cover for her i she knew that she'd run out of luck and had to get the hell out of there the staggering thing is despite having worked in this network to get all these people through across the pyrenees for her getting to england was just about impossible i caught the train west heading for the pyrenees i'd already cried my way to the station always looking over my shoulder i wrote to angry pretending i was leaving him i hoped the bloody gestapo would read that letter too there were mishap after mishap there were the whole network was broken because of the testimony provided by coal and the arrests that have been made by the nazis and it was not easy deciding to leave france was hard enough actually doing it was harder still for three infuriating months storms blocked the mountain passes while i traiped around to lose in a foul mood in my only set of clothes i kept getting on that train [Music] her fearlessness i think divides her from the rest of us thinkers get scared i think people who have got um think too much about consequences when the chips were down i don't think she allowed herself that luxury andre used to joke that i could eat money like no one else he knew but no champagne to wash it down the interesting thing okay with nancy at the point that she's in jail that would be very close to the low point of her war because there she is she's one of the most wanted women in europe she's top of the gestapo list when they asked why i was on the train he said i'd had a fight with henry and walked out they called me a liar said my id was fake that i was a prostitute from lord who had set off a bomb and run away they interrogated me for four days but never once checked my story i told them nothing mercifully they don't know the authorities don't realize that the woman they've got in cell b uh is the is the white mouse and because she's not she's not telling them who she is and she's not she's not cooperating at all but her fear was they'll work it out next thing i'll know it'll be a firing squad and i'll be i'll be gone [Music] one day she looks up and there is a familiar face and it's patrick o'leary what the hell are you doing getting you out of here i'm released command you're my mistress so act like you forgot sayings oh [ __ ] is you i've giving up hope i had to be discreet it took time but i'm here now the husband is a very important man a close friend of premier leval who as you know he said of melissa come on the lady's possessions please and if there's one thing french authorities you know respected it was a man coming to get his mistress i understand that don't let me don't let me get in the way of it so o'leary gets her out [Music] it's all here i'm hearing cards money jewelry premier level to answer to if it wasn't it was a bloody stupid risk you took worthy of the white mouse henry told me your families now should be impressed does he know you're a cup shed no soldiers go go [Music] ah [Music] [ __ ] every time one of us gets on the train the gestapo knows about it don't tell me it's a bloody coincidence you have a spy someone close i can feel it only like [ __ ] on the liver after leaving she thought she'd get over the pyrenees very quickly but she couldn't you know she kept being beaten back and safe houses would be found to be dangerous houses and she'd have to fall back and at one point in her travels she found herself within a hundred yards of her house back in marseille marseille and what she desperately wanted to do was to go and you know see her husband and see only and say i'm still alive and i'm still going strong i was right there was another spy a gestapo agent called lunev the bastard had betrayed us every which way o'leary was arrested and there was no telling how many other names had been dished up i had to make a run for it but not before i'd warned our people in marseille henry had to be told i just couldn't do it myself she felt that it was too dangerous both for her and for him so she didn't and so there was no contact passed between her and only after she left three months i'd waited for my chance three long months from leaving angry to leaving france and this old boy wasn't gonna stop me now i told him sweetly that i'd drag him by his queen if he didn't keep walking [Music] by this point in those early 1940s from the point of view of london what you looked across the channel and saw was you saw europe occupied by the germans just about everywhere but you also saw these pin pricks of light these little resistance movements that had been sprinkling up and they knew a little bit about them but they didn't know a lot of them but but churchill's idea was to set up an organizing body which was subsequently became known as the special operations executive and what it was about was in churchill's words church europe ablaze and he really meant it in terms of sabotage the wrecking of railways the wrecking of factories that were working for the german war effort and make life completely intolerable for the germans occupying france [Music] [Music] offensive she gets back to london she hears about the special operations executive and uh you know she goes to knock on their door knock knock knock who's there nancy wait come on in and they train her up over many many months and she's it's a serious i mean it's almost a forerunner of mi6 mi5 one of those two it's almost a forerunner of james bond the training was done in scotland really to test how fit they could become and how they stood up to the stress of just physical work hard work the trainers delighted in making us climb up things and clamber down again there were a few other women some of them french there were day maneuvers and night maneuvers and we were often muddy dirty and tired and that was just for fitness some of them cracked up very quickly because either in terms of physical terms or in terms of strength of character they just didn't have it so that was the first stage and she came through that as she came through all her training very well then the next stage of training would be to be in a different place in england south of england where they were trained in what was rather ominously called silent killing and they were trained how to kill people by slitting the throats or um stabbing them in certain parts of the of the back so that the person died instantly and combat unarmed combat weaponry munitions codes morse code how to remember she told me she was taught how to disable a tank you could disable a tank with some honey because if you got the honey into the petrol supply you could stop a tank somehow or other when she found herself an agent among many other agents she was if not the best in the business at it she was very very good at it and she was you know she had journalistic skills she'd worked as a journalist so she'd always been good at skullduggery basically and now she was being a professional stal gagaroo or style girl well let me just read to you something from her report she has a strong personality is pleasant jolly and sociable but capable of being rather difficult if upset superficially she is inclined to be crude coarse and noisy but this behavior conceals a more serious nature she knew that the reports were being written on all of them and she worked out with one of her companions how to break into the commander's office and get her report attracted by adventure and excitement and at times appears to lack a proper sense of seriousness and responsibility she is however essentially loyal and reliable and has a marked sense of humor persistent and determined she has abundant energy report was very very good and she said she said you know to the commander my report was very good wasn't it how do you naturally i broke in and i've had a look at it you know so you know they're impressed then we joined the parachute school with electric torches we'd guide planes to the drop zone in a field so they train her up but she realizes there's a problem up ahead she's going to have to jump from a plane parachute down into occupied france and from a little girl on what she she was trying to prove her fearlessness to her brothers and sisters and at one point she climbs onto the roof of her house and they say don't jump don't jump don't jump why not because if you jump you'll break your leg and she says i want to jump you won't jump you'll break your leg well they were wrong and they were right because they were wrong that she wouldn't jump she did but they were right she did break a leg and that put in her uh a fear ever after of heights so what's the way around it so as she gets in the plane and she's had a coffee and she's had a sandwiches and she's you know taking off and she says to the american uh guy behind her all right look come the time i'm not going to be able to do this you're going to have to give me a shove and so there she is and it was actually a hole in the floor and she's looking at it she's looking and think i don't know if i can do this i don't know i wonder if he's going to push me and then she's out and she's falling down oh [ __ ] [ __ ] that england should send us such a beautiful flower cut out the french [ __ ] and get me out of this you can start by taking your bloody hands off me is the radio operator here yet dennis rake if they call him denden no we have not seen you dad all right take me to guest bar he used to wait at the monkey here why but you do not go to gaspar gaspar comes to you when he is ready get it his way ah is it now it's not always easy to accept accept the um persuasion of foreigners who's suddenly been parachuted into you and so they did need to use the soe people did need to use their courtesy and good manners in dealing with the french to persuade them to operate in the way that was felt best to assist the allied cause no this is one of gaspar's men okay spy's here why the bloody hell didn't he tell me he was coming so i finally get to meet the great man huh well if he thinks i'm hurrying i can think again she was this rumbling volcano of anger sometimes erupting into you know absolute incandescent rage but what went with that was this bubbling sexuality and at a certain bodiness that was always present when she had to choose a code line for her radio communications with the resistance she chose a really quite filthy limerick and it was she stood right there in the moonlight fair the moonlight through her 90. there's something something the nipple of her tit of jesus christ almighty and that was absolutely typical nancy gaspar you know why i'm here oh save us from the german innovation hmm you a woman i can get all the munitions you need oh my parachute dropped from london with no radio well my operator will be here just says dendon yes where is he well i don't know but he will be here you are useless we got this far without you we finish it without you it wasn't enough to say i'm nancy away from my farm i'm from the special operations executive she needed a radio and a radio operator because without that you know there's no capacity to call london and get get it all to happen it wasn't possible to deliver him the following night and so for a long time they were without a radio operator and therefore really powerless their task was to go and link up with the particular resistance group that had been identified form them into a fighting body radio us will be able to drop them money ammunition and guns well they found the group all right but they couldn't do anything about it because they had no raid accumulations i've met some arrogant frenchman in my time but gaspar takes the biscuit he thinks he's english what can you expect did you hear that the bastards are talking about me she's got a pile of trunks and bag of hers it's there to be taken ah so you are over here i will do it i will seduce her kill her and take the money not before i break his [ __ ] nick ah marcel you look upset i am don't worry about gaspar he is not used to talking to a woman oh but you are i can see you have a lot to offer and i'm ready to listen but perhaps we should go somewhere more private how about my room boy good and would you like to take me to bed as well i would be honored of course and then kill me and steal my money is that the plan do me a favor mate just [ __ ] try it forget her she has nothing sorry i'm late ducky anyone need a radio missed you looking good come and make these bricks hello her radio operator oddly enough who was an avowedly gay man in nineteen nineteen forties london there wouldn't have been many of them his name was dennis rack denden she called him and she said oh yes he was a queer and i knew he was a queer and i was thinking oh steady on dancing you know people don't really talk about that these days or don't really use that kind of language these days and but she was so matter-of-fact and so straight up about it she said i knew he was a queer but he was my friend and i loved him which if you think about it for the 1940s was pretty progressive attitude how soon can we arrange a drop is tonight good for you bloody brilliant what are the chances of getting a message to the resistance in marseille it's not in the handbook lovey no i know but monami you are about to become the most well-armed marquee leader in all of france and gaspar i meant to say i like the look of this one yours all mine mind on the jogged indian oh believe me sweetie it always is but she realized that you know as a woman you know the odds would initially be stacked against her and that they would be quite suspicious of of of having a woman uh attempting to lead uh this band of monkey because war was seen as as as man's work there were many who would would want to lead those 7 000 men there was only one of them that could get on the blower and make planes come over and have machine guns come down it wasn't just guns and explosives we needed boots great coats bandages and a few small luxuries face creams tea and new stockings were always a treat suddenly gaspar gets very interested because this this this ray can make the sky rain what i wanted to reign with nancy was more than happy to get stuck in and it was by demonstrating that that i think the marquis sort of thought hmm got a slightly odd one here at which point she would frequently bring out a bottle of whiskey and they'd start to drink she'd start to drink with a local resistance leader and said all right let's start drinking last man left standing at dawn wins i reckon it was the kiwi part of it that made her a good drinker i cannot describe to you the parachute roll on [ __ ] concrete they're picking jelly second she has the most marvelous carves i have seen some big drinkers in my time i've been a big drinker in my time i've never ever come across anybody that could put it away like nancy and never turn a staggered she had a good time i think um i remember asking her about her time in london and you know was the agenda to get back to france as soon as possible to see what happened to henry and she says well no no that wasn't the motive i said so what was the motive she said to be parachuted in one woman with seven thousand marquis what would you do roger what would you think and gave me a bit of a wink so i think she had a good time with the marquis and i again i said to her once i said look you know you you really like don rita he's a rugby player he's a frenchman it's a cold lost and lonely night did you ever with any any and she and what she said her exact words she said if i had accommodated one of them i would have had to have accommodated all of them so she said she had took no lovers in the forest you know who he is he betrayed o'leary and half of my say hey i hate the bust as much as you do more so why did you try to stop me there's still a taste of his own medicine turn into nazis you mean think like they think do what they do is that what we're fighting for no it's time to put this prick out of his misery [Music] if you don't do it i will i think because it was such an intense time during the war where they had to watch each other's backs and they also had to trust one another as well because if anybody was an informer or anybody was potentially going to rat the gestapo you know they couldn't afford for those kind of risks to to endanger them so it would have been a very very tight band by the spring of 1944 the whole purpose of soe in france was turned towards preparation in various ways for the allied invasion in june d-day was coming and the idea was the special operations executive is to organize these resistance bodies and have them armed and with ammunition so that when the d-day landing happens in normandy what's going to happen is german divisions from occupied parts of europe all over are going to start to rush towards normandy to stem the bridge early on the 6th of june the long-awaited invasion finally bloody appeared resistance fighters all over france were wound like springs waiting then three hundred thousand troops landed between too long and khan we all hoped this was the beginning of the end for the germans nancy's coming into her own this is now you know thunderbirds are go you've got the men you've got the money you've got the guns you've got the ammunition this is what you've got to do so you know they've worked out where the divisions are coming from the germans they'll be coming on this railway they'll be crossing this embankment you know passing through this mountain pass hit hit hit and so she leads these forces in these attacks on the germans trying to get to to send the landing we were flat out buggering up everything we could we blew up bridges railway lines roads all day and all night what did the nazis do they burned houses hanged innocent people shot them against walls when they couldn't get who they really wanted us the marquee in the part of france that i was living in i believe la gallard the nearby town of tulu they had been the resistance had been active and the germans came through that town said okay you want you want to you want to take pot shots at us okay get a hundred men they got a hundred men and they hung them from a hundred lampposts one hundred of them say okay anybody else want to take pot shots at us that was what they were like the germans at that point they were they were they were absolutely desperate they were vicious they were without mercy in german troops slaughtered almost 650 villagers they set fire to the bodies and burned the town to the ground the men were accused of ambushing german troops and women and children died in the flames locked up in the church this was the terrible price paid for resistance still we were getting more recruits by the day so now gaspar had 5 000 men camped on a mountain plateau obviously a juicy target but even with 15 000 german troops headed our way he was still too pig-headed to listen to me these men have come here to fight the germans they've got mobile artillery a thousand armored vehicles 10 planes and what have you got guts we do not run like you britain no we fight them to the death you are outnumbered you will never win your men will die you go you leave us these are your routes when you come to your senses for god's sake use them [Music] so much for my own escape route i knew i wouldn't be able to play the sexy housewife or flash a bit of tit to get through not this time not driving a car away from a full-on german assault there were desperate fire fights going on all around the plateau london ordered gaspar to withdraw but i knew he wouldn't do it so i played on his ego signed a top french general's name to the radio message one look at that the damn fool couldn't move quick enough we foreign about bloody time too i'm so sorry i had to do it we were utterly surrounded i i just it was so desperate that at one point her radio operator thought they're about to take me they're about i've got to destroy the radio i've got to destroy the code so i've got to do it so he destroys the whole thing just at the last they are managed to get away you know we're alive we're you know we're we're all we're all good we're alive and denden says yes we are alive but we haven't got the radio and without the radio it's it's it's you know samson without his hair it it's it's it's john wayne without a gun there's nothing they can do and so nancy realizes we need we need a radio and we need a radio fast it's an soe radio at chateau roux that is a 400 kilometer round no no no there are roadblocks everywhere we never get through i could on a bicycle with no backup no identity papers i can handle the checkpoints i've done it before yeah look what other choice do we have with no radio we have no contact with london no intel no weapons we can't even organize the marquee we're just a bunch of french ferals running around in the forest it is true put on the miata i'm making that bike ride oh nancy lovey small problem no bicycle oh you haven't heard the old french joke what's the gypsy recipe for chicken soup first steal a chicken she wouldn't plan it she would give it a go and work it out she went along and that's how in that big bike ride she didn't think about how she was going to get through those checkpoint points she she would do that when she got there she would assess the situation quickly charm or lie her way through it wasn't some grand plan i'd barely ever ridden a bike before and by 40 days in i was knackered one more turn one more turn [Music] my heart sank at every checkpoint but i smiled and flirted with the guards when what i longed to do was blow their ugly mugs off [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] 200 kilometers in a day and a half on a bike just to be turned away over a password this was not going to happen he sent the message to london all right and i hope to hell we'd get our new radio or we were screwed and then it was on your bite nancy that damn bike i was past exhausted but it was 200 kilometers back to my men so off i pedaled one more turn one more turn when she'd been on the bike it was so exhausting and she didn't dare stop she actually wet herself while she was sitting you know on the seat of the bike because she was so desperate to complete the journey nancy said to me that the bike ride was the proudest thing that she'd ever done and that she felt it was the bravest thing that she'd ever done there is a slight sense of awe being with somebody who has achieved so much in their lifetime um but also somebody for whom my generation owes a debt of gratitude because if it wasn't for people like nancy wake saying no i'm not standing for this and i'm gonna stick my neck on the line and i'm going to do my bit to try and defeat nazi germany if it wasn't for people like her then the war could have had a very different outcome and what i most remember about that first meeting was she she undid her shirt and she showed me this scar this bayonet scar from there to there where a german soldier had slitted wide open and it was just amazing this little old lady telling me these stories and realizing gee you know she really must have been something in the day airmail from london cherub all thanks to you oh you never guess what else tardy's planning a hit-and-run on what the gestapo headquarters at mon lu song all the top bras [ __ ] it's my bloody idea thought you might be interested the raid was arranged for when those thugs were enjoying their pre-lunch drinks tarivar sent me through the back door did it bother me killing those men in cold blood not for a second i remembered the tortured jews in vienna the pregnant french woman bayoneted in front of her screaming child my friend in the resistance who'd had his head cut off with an axe if you ask me the only good nazi is a dead one at one point i said to her look because i've done my research why did you raid this particular gestapo headquarters and not that one and her exact answer to me she said what kind of a stupid question is that you can get fat and i was just absolutely taken aback just was shocked and so i turned the tape recorder off and i said nancy i honor you and i respect you and i don't i don't ask you in return as your biographer to honor me but you gotta give me sufficient respect that you don't talk to me like that the only person talks to me like that is my wife and she said i said so are we clear so if you talk to me like that again you know this project is finished which you should i said but term take a good one put it there so why do why do you why did you raid those because typo headquarters and she said you can get [ __ ] and that was the beginning of my relationship with nancy wagon [Applause] she had a wonderful war she had the time of her life and when peace arrived in 1945 the party was suddenly all over i really don't think that life was ever the same for nancy after that simply because of all the fun was gone she enjoyed the daring do she enjoyed the gun battles and then suddenly when there's no water fight anymore then you've kind of got to go back to ordinary life paris was one but the south fought on until the liberation of vichy suddenly all the german troops were evacuated collaborators vanished into thin air and the streets went wild with joy soldiers and maki alike we were toasted wherever we went in part of the liberating trip she was one of the first trucks that got in there chased the germans out and they haul up you know the the the tri-color and they play la marseilles and they're all in the square and you know vishy is free again france is free and she sees somebody that from from the old days back in marseille it's so good to see you and you you look wonderful are you going back to marseille i'm heading there this afternoon why to see henry of course oh no i thought you knew i don't know you must know you must have heard something she was very troubled by this afterwards that henry may have been left in a difficult situation and hoped i think that he had got away and was hiding somewhere or at the very worst was in prison she thought he was very brave to stay behind she thought that was um pretty heroic andrei fiorka came to see me on me at home the gestapo they told me they know who your wife is that she is this white mouse they are looking for they told me i can take you to a hospital all you have to do is confirm who nancy is tell them what she did where you think she could be nazis taking berlin hill she's not with this she's not worth my son's life never speak of this thank you he was so generous so kind he always gave me everything i asked for he was a lovely lovely man it was dawn on the 16th of october 1943. when i woke up i told myself over and over it was just a dream it was just a dream or how could i have kept going given her activities she felt that she was the one that should have faced the firing squad if anybody was going to take the hit on this she was the one that needed the blindfold as it turned out they couldn't get her so they got honorary i don't think she would have forgiven herself for what happened to him i think the sacrifice that she made when she left france and went to go and fight with the soe um was potentially too great a sacrifice for her to bear you murdered my son leave it my dad do you know what happened to him son coming started with that traitor you warned us about maneuver while o'leary was rotting in jail he came by information that he needed to pass on to the must-see resistance a prisoner he trusted was about to be released so he gave him a message to pastor andre using a code that you'd recognize the prisoner was a gestapo agent the gestapo arrested him tortured him and killed him executed him and you know nancy again of the sorrows of her life that's that was the foremost sorrow of her life honorary was the love of her life his execution was the greatest sorrow of her life and she always felt guilty that the reason that he'd been executed not unreasonably was that he was he was her husband when i asked nancy about henry and how she coped with his his death she had a very far away look in her eye and she said to me i loved him uh honorary fiaca was his name and he was a wonderful man and interestingly his photograph was stuck to the wall next to her bed no sign of her second husband but there's no doubt that henry fiocca was the love of her life [Music] you

Channel: undefined

Views: 1,989,736

Rating: 4.7909899 out of 5

Keywords: stories, History, Documentaries, Nazi, spy, Full length Documentaries, dramatisations, WWII, Nancy Wake, history documentary, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, docudrama biopic, Gestapo, British agent, Medal of Freedom, Churchill’s secret army, Channel 4 documentary, real, journalist, French Resistance, BBC documentary, Full Documentary, French, service-woman, New Zealand, Sebastian Faulkes, Henri Fiocca, TV Shows - Topic, Paris, documentary history, Charlotte Gray, Documentary

Id: qNXKovYM15A

Length: 67min 48sec (4068 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 19 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/CupcakeAndTea]

I really love Nancy Wake's story. I would watch this a few time and really enjoy the docu-drama of this particular video. So happy to see it uploaded one again! Highly recomend this one.

[u/Kotukunui]

She was a relative of mine. Her grandmother and my great-great-grandmother were sisters. I read a couple of her biographies. She would have been a force of nature in person, but I don’t think she would have been particularly tolerant of differing opinions to hers. She was ideally suited to being a resistance fighter but not so much as a politician after the war. Too much compromise (and you aren’t allowed to garrote the people who disagree with you) The legendary “White Mouse” lives on in our family legend. Thanks to the documentary makers who got her story made.

[u/CardboardSoyuz]

As always, Badassoftheweek has you covered:

http://badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=27450552861

[u/billFoldDog]

I only intended to watch a little and it sucked me in. This documentary is great!

[u/NinjaGuy206]

From the thumbnail I thought it was the Clown from Mcdonalds.

[u/wheelofcheeseonapole]

Does anyone have a mirror?