The Story Of Nancy Wake | Absolute History

[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 wall was filled with love and laughter yes there were debts yes there were tears but love and laughter and she just you know she was a flower that bloomed in I was a Kiwi girl in a hurry yes this is nets awake in Marseille a world away from home far from New Zealand far from Australia this was just the beginning soon I'd be a spoilt French society wife a German hating resistance fighter the Nazis most wanted woman codenamed the white mouse car 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 Wang she was uh she was the real deal so there she's drop-dead gorgeous New Zealand Australian woman learning French working at working as a journalist so she'd strata 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 and you know the French have always valued no joke a gorgeous woman whom she was one so then I ran back to my hotel and typed up this time right please right side born Bucky 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 that Mozilla I've seen you something before I think I must say the order do this that's where I stay when I'm working yes I never forget a beautiful face I'm on the reef Yoko Nancy wait no shell tear how do you wave from New Zealand originally you're a long way from home honey it's Nancy and actually I'm quite home right here my telephone number next time you'll not see I'll be there next week so they convenient but I don't ring gentlemen miss your yoga gentlemen bring me call it my foreign policy over Mozilla [Music] if she loved Paris she even more luck the river year 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 labelled Monde and she absolutely adored the whole thing she described herself as a giddy young thing but I don't think she was that kidding she always struck me as the kind of woman who knew what she wanted and she knew how to get it L&T miss Alton how did you know I was here u.s. staying a week then I'm off Vienna Berlin why you must have heard what's happening I want to get the story firsthand get a look at different why you others can go let them and miss the action what possible reason would [Applause] maybe I should have listened to Olli 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 there breathing seemed to stop its fired her up everything she saw about an artist and just absolutely in her it reviled her salt she was appalled by everything she saw that didn't 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 whose major crime 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 she has landed on her feet worn lucky didn't I tell ya it's Micheline what's with the old sourpuss on his father he thinks Nancy is trouble tried everything to break them up as if he had a chance Nancy adored ornery 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 with him polite marseilles 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 then would sometimes you know would frequently arise at 10:00 and say no I will have my lunch with the patio [Music] even married in white made a worse match if you try to first look at foreign protested gusta diamond such a mistake and at what price look nades he was a good hater so you could have hated first ride she could have had it for New Zealand she could have been the Australasian champion of hating and in those years the person she hated most was Audrey's father and he said to Warner a beautiful women you got a dozen of them why pick this one and Nancy sense that from the very beginning my husband is a gentleman and a gentle man his father on the other hand is an ass every day's 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 come back to that her dear daddy that she used to wipe 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 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 they would win quite easily people suddenly realize 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 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 try yes but they're desperate for more ambulances and drivers you've got tracks at the factory convert one for me and I'll Drive it to the Belgian front won't cost you much money you eat money like no one else oh no give me a truck you don't even know to drive I can learn you don't have to do anything why do you throw me there because you'll be are 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 smile don't feel you'd be surprised what I do for a good cause show me what 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 that down in that part of France initially we're not going to be occupying their part of France she had no need but Nancy became involved very early on [Music] [Music] I think it worse if you stay here come on after marshal Petter ahead who was the hero of the first world war had basically sued for peace with Hitler and said you know we've got a throw in our lot we've got to collaborate so much for Schroeder bloody vivre I cried for a week when the armistice was signed I wasn't fooled in anyone else with half a brain was in floods our freedom everything we stood for had been dashed away with the stroke of a pen 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 at the day-after Pathan's 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 he became involved bit by bit with the Scots by the name of Ian Garrow who organised helped organized 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 con 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 money transport factories yes we'll use those too but this is my chance to do something you already did you drove an ambulance for five minutes while you fought at the frontline 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 alright it's not alright you should never have been asked to do this 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 money please I'm doing it whether you like it or not so you might as well shut up about it listen to yourself the 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 with that stuff in your courts they'll find it you'll be dragged away I'll never see you again you said what you want that won't happen I think for Nancy the thrill of the chase was was half of the fun she certainly wanted to fight the good fight but also the idea of doing something under the radar outfoxing the Nazis that would have been part of the thrill for her checkpoints they'll have a barricade across the road and they'd be swarthy German men with guns on their guard and they're looking for the enemy what does the enemy gonna look like well it's gonna look a bit like them it's gonna be men with guns and there's a there's a beer yeah Fraulein where are these men where are these men with guns and that was Nancy always felt that her sexiness her attractiveness was it was perhaps her greatest weapon 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 a way out of trouble and if 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 into 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 landed in occupied Europe then the local population in part was at great pains to try and get them to safety Nancy joined a skate 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 Mediterranean to Spain or over the Pyrenees is to Spain as Timmy do here you're close to you 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 have them over to a guide they would have had to be very organized they would have had to have had a system whereby when these Airmen turned up they had a place they put them they had people who were coming in and the Hat out of the house who knew how to deal with that who knew when and how to talk about it announced his role was really as a career in all this and she really was if you like the gofer a very effective gopher for the Pat line something to remember spine [Music] but there were German agents all over the place of course Kozak 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 battle areas permission to do more and more in the path line she was the kind of woman who could read situations and read people read people's reactions to her she obviously knew how to play certain situations to her advantage she had this kind of intuition gara at one point brought another man to her home his name was Paul Cole hello Garrow afternoon madam fee okay I hope you don't mind us calling unannounced I'd like to introduce miss I don't care who that man is he's not welcome here I beg your pardon you heard me please leave now why what if I asked you to leave do I have to throw you out myself fine I'm going crazy [ __ ] bring me here and don't come back where the hell did you do that you saw him sitting in honorees chair drinking his whiskey who's that man think he is he fought at Dunkirk he risked his life to save others I find that hard to believe I was baited by O'Leary damn you Paul Colt might not have the kind of manners that you'd like but he deserves your respect and your help you can't treat him like that this is my home I won't treat him how I bloody well like what if you want to work for us your choice you can sing his praises till Kingdom Come I don't like Paul Kol 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 she would have sniffed them out pretty quickly fought at Dunkirk my foot Cole was a coward 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 spoilt clueless woman so he forgot all about me I think the Cole episode was seminal and I think that that confirmed in her my instincts are good if him doubt back my back my own back my own feelings on things late in 42 life in the mass a 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 malice 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 concentration counter where as conditions of course file [Music] the Germans had a codename for her they were aware that there was this woman working against him 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 true because the Germans became more and more aware of their activities things became hotter and hotter my instincts began humming then one day my friend a cafe owner on the corner whispered a warning Nancy this morning you were fired you have to get out use the escape line go to England about you if they suspect me I'll be fine I'll follow later we well I'm sure the business can survive without now 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 it I still can't believe I have a code name in Berlin code name hey does here you're on the Nazis most-wanted list it's enough money now take this your lucky five-pound note isn't that what you call it it's only lucky if they get to spend it on you as soon as you get to London send me word I'll be there when I can she was always up front with me that you know the love of my life was my first husband Oh Murphy oka 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 all three she wanted to be Madame Fuca 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 on really lift at the same time then that would have been instantly suspicious enjoy your shopping buy something I like don't I always Marie 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 you have to promise me that you won't ask me either are you saying this to me now are you trying to make me jealous because it's war timing love by a my darling see you soon ma it's a love story but it's a French love story in any other country he'd be faithful and she'd be faithful in a French love story I loved each other was he faithful no he's French that's the way it is and Nancy realized pretty early on that he was not being faithful to her bath you know as was the habit of the day she more or less accepted it she left Honore in a pretty bad circumstances he volunteered to stay behind and cover for it I she knew that she had 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 only pretending I was leaving him I hope the bloody Gestapo would read that letter - there were mishap after mishap there were the whole network was broken because of the testimony provided by coal and the arrests that had been made by the Nazis it was not easy deciding to leave France was hard enough actually doing it was harder still for three infuriating month's storms blocked the mountain passes while I trekked around Toulouse in a foul mood in my only suit of clothes I kept getting on that train I say blimey the fearlessness is I think divides her from the rest of us thinkers get scared I think people who who've got think too much about consequences when the chips were down I don't think she allowed herself that luxury [Music] only used to joke that I could eat money like no one else he knew but no champagne to wash it down the interesting thing 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 said I'd had a fight song they yelled out they called me a liar said my ID was fake that I was a prostitute from Lord who had set up a bomb and run away they interrogated me for four days but never once chipped my story I told them nothing mercifully they don't know the authorities don't realize that the woman they've got in sell but is that is the white mouse and because he's not you're 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 know it'll be a firing squad and I'll beat I'll be gone [Music] one day she looks up and there is a familiar face it's Patrick O'Leary getting you out of here I'm Elise command you're my mistress aw sure it is you given up hope I have to be discreet it took time but I'm here now the husband is a very important man a close friend of premier Navarro as you know he said of Melissa come Madame 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 but if I understand that don't let me hand let me get in the way of it so O'Leary gets her out [Music] [Music] it's all here oh very ID cards money jewelry for me a novelty wants to veto isn't it was a fool of a street and rescue took worthy of the white mouse IRA told me the fungus now should be impressed does he know your caption soldiers [Music] I've got my big lost everything dad's money won raise children just bad luck if we're talking one of his kids want to try and the Gestapo knows about it don't tell me it's a bloody coincidence Dobie sometimes I can feel I'm hearing like [ __ ] on the liver after leaving laundry you thought you'd get over the Pyrenees very quickly but she couldn't you know she kept being beaten back and safehouses 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 at my side I say and what she desperately wanted to do was to go on you know see her husband and see ornery and say I'm still alive and I'm still going strong I was right there was another spy a Gestapo agent called Luna 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 not before I'd warned our people in Marseilles Honore 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 uh normally after she left three months I'd waited for my chance three long months from leaving only to leave in France and this old boy wasn't gonna stop me now I told him sweetly that I dragged him by his cui if he didn't keep walking 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 pinpricks 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 Schreck 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 occupied France [Music] [Music] she gets back to London she hears about the Special Operations Executive and you know she goes to knock on their door knock knock knock who's there Nancy wait come on in and they trained 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 trainer's delighted in making us climb up things and plummer 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 you came through all her training very well then the next stage of training would be to be in a different place play in England south of England whether we trained in waters rather ominously called silent killing and they were trained how to kill people by slitting the throats or stabbing them in certain parts of them of the back so that the person died instantly and combat unarmed combat weaponry munitions codes Morse code power 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 Stahl Kogarah was still going arrests 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 put 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 comic who commander's office and get her report attracted by adventure and excitement and at times appears to lack a proper sense of seriousness and responsibilities 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 as she said she said Jeannette to the computer our report was very good but how do you know she's well my breaking I've had a look at it 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 try in a run but she realizes there's a problem up ahead she's gonna have to jump from a plane parachute down into occupied France and from a little girl on what 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 I say don't jump don't jump that job 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 I 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 putting her fear ever after of heights No what's the way around it so as she gets in the plane and she's had a coffee and she's had the sandwiches and she's you know taking off and she says to the American guy behind her all right but come the dawn I'm not gonna be able to do this you're gonna have to give me a shelf and so there she is and it was actually a hole in the floor and she's looking at what she's looking think I don't know if I can do this I wonder if he's gonna board yeah and she's and she's falling there the England should send us such a beautiful flower bullshittin give me either my monsley yes who you only 30 wrap your service you can start by taking your bloody hands off me is the radio operator here yet do this rake if they call him Dindin no all right take me to guess by he's - we do the monkey here Wayne but you'd almost got to guess bad yes bat comes to you when he is ready it's not always easy to accept accept the persuasion of foreigners who suddenly being 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 gasp as men ok spies here why the bloody hell didn't he tell me he was coming so I finally get to meet the great man huh well he thinks I'm hurrying 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 above a certain board eNOS 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 you know as she stood right there in the moonlight fair the moonlight threw her 90 there's something something the nipple of her tit oh Jesus Christ Almighty and that was absolutely typical Nancy guess bath you know why I'm here who save us from the German invasion I can get all the munitions you need Oh my parachute drop from London with no radio what my operator will be here just denden 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 why from a farmer I'm from the Special Operations Executive she needed a radio and a radio operated 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 formed 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 radio Commission's I've made some arrogant Frenchmen in my time I guess bad takes the biscuit it's there to be taken I will do it killer and take the money break his [ __ ] meat not sale 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 my room boy would and would you like to take me to bed as well they wouldn't be honored of course and then kill me and steal my money is that the plan favor mate just [ __ ] try it myself forget her she has nothing sorry I'm late duckie anyone need a radio mm-hmm mister you radio operator oddly enough who was an avowed league a man in 1919 40s London there wouldn't have been many of them his name was Dennis wreck denne denne she called him and she said oh yes he was a queer and I knew he was a queer and I was thinking all steely on taxi you know people don't really talk about pet 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 it was a queer but he was my friend and I loved him which if you think about it for the 1940s was a pretty progressive attitude how soon can we arrange a drop is tonight could be bloody brilliant what are the chances of getting a message to that assistance in Marseille it's not in the handbook lovey no I know but one of me you are about to become the most well armed marquise leader in all the France and guess bra I meant to say I like the look of this one yours or mine mind on a jog ding-ding believe me sweetie it always is but she realized that you know as a woman unit the odds would initially be stacked against her and that they would be quite suspicious of having a woman attempting to lead this band of McCabe because war was seen as as as man's work there were many who would she would want to leave that 7,000 men there was only one of them that could get on the BLA 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 pour moi face creams tea and new stockings were always a treat suddenly Gaspard gets very interested because this this this Madame Andre can make the sky rain what I wanted to rain with Nancy was more than happy to get stuck in and it was by demonstrating that that I think the Marquise I thought mmm got a slightly odd word in here at which point she would frequently bring out a bottle of whiskey and that start to drink she'd start to drink with the local resistance leader and said alright let's start thinking last man left standing at door wins I reckon that was the Kiwi part of the that matter of the drinker [Music] 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 he staggered she had a good time I think 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 honoré 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 7,000 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 go and I said to her once I said yeah you really like don't eat a diva he's a rugby player he's a Frenchman it's a cold lost a lonely night did you ever with any any and she said what she said in 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 my lover's in the forest you know who is he betrayed O'Leary enough of Marseille hey I think the Buster as much as you do [Music] turn into Nazis you mean think like they think do what they do is that what we're fighting for if you don't do it I will I think cuz it was such an intense time during the war where they had to watch each other's backs and they was there to trust one another as well because if anybody was an informer or anybody was potentially going to rap to 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 points 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 300 thousand troops landed between too long and can 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 there you know that worked out we have the divisions were coming from the Germans they'll be coming on this railway that we're crossing this embankment you know passing through this mountain pass Kentucky leads these forces in these attacks on the Germans trying to get to the central landing buggering up everything we could we blow up bridges railway lines roads all day and all night what are the Nazis do they burned houses hanged innocent people shot them against walls when they couldn't get who they really wanted us Rumaki believe like I add the nearby town of two they had been the resistance had been active and the Germans came through that town today okay you want it you want to you want to take potshots at us okay get a hundred men I got a hundred men and they hang them from a hundred lamppost one hundred of them say okay anybody else want to take potshots 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 I adore fiddlin 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 5000 men camped on a mountain plateau obviously a juicy target but even with 15,000 German troops headed our way he was still too pigheaded to listen to me Jews may have come here to fight though Germans they've got mobile artery a thousand armored vehicles ten planes and what have you got guts we do not run like you Britain hello we fight them to the death you are outnumbered you will never win your men will die you go you'll leave us biscuit 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 tips to get through not this time not driving a car away from a full-on German assault they were disparate firefights going on all around the plateau London ordered gas power to withdraw I knew he wouldn't do it so I played on his ego signed a top French generals name to the radio message one look at that a damn fool couldn't move quick enough Galarraga you'll see Casper about bloody time - I'm so sorry I had to do it we were actually surrounded I just thought it was so desperate that at one point her radio operator thought they're about to take me here about I've got to destroy the radio I wouldn't destroy the codes I've got to do it so he destroys the whole thing just at the last they've managed to get away you know we're alive with will we're all good we're a lot 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 sampson without is here 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 there's an SOA radio at Chateau vu there is a 400 kilometer round roadblocks everywhere we never get through I could on a bicycle with no backup no identity papers I can handle the cheap ones I've done it before what other choice do we have with no radio we have no contact with London no Intel no Whitman's we can't even organize the marquee we're just a bunch of French Farrell's running around in the forest it is true Mia I'm making that bike ride Oh Nancy lovely small problem no bicycle you haven't heard the old French joke what's the Gypsy recipe for chicken soup first stealer 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 checkpoints she she would do that when she got there she would assist the situation quickly charm or lie her way through there wasn't some grand plan I'd barely ever ridden a bike before and by 40k Zen I was naked one more turn one more turn [Music] my heart sank at every checkpoint but I smiled and flirted with the guards just when what I longed to do was blow their ugly mugs off [Music] [Music] [Music] I couldn't believe it 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 all over the screwed and then it was on your bike Nancy Dan 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 beam on by it was so exhausting and she didn't dare stop she actually we're to herself while she was sitting or 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 or being with somebody who has achieved so much in their lifetime 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 gonna 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 must remember about that first meeting was she she undid her shirt and she showed me this scarf this bayonets guy from there to there where a German soldier it's little wide open it was just amazing this little old lady telling me these stories and realized Jake you know she really must have known something in the day ml from London terrible all thanks to you oh you never guess what else tardies planning a hit and run i what we could stop her headquarters at Molineux saw all the top brass [ __ ] my bloody idea thought you might be interested the raid was arranged for when those thugs were enjoying their pre-lunch drinks tardive are 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 bayonetted 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 very good Nancy 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 who exactly answer to me she said what kind of a question is that and I was just absolutely taken aback just was shocked and so I turned the tape recorder off from I said Nancy I honor you and I respect you don't I don't I don't ask you in return as your biographer to honor me but you've got to 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 and she should know I said don't oh come on put up there so why do you why do you why did you ride those could stop our headquarters and she said that was the beginning of my relationship with Nancy watch [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 the daring dough she and 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 marquee alike we were toasted wherever we went even part of the liberating trip she was in one of the first trucks that got in there chased the Germans out they haul up you know the the the tricolor and they playing our Marseillaise and they're all in the square and you know this she is free again France is free and she sees somebody that from from the old days back in Marseilles it's so good to see you and you you are you gonna make Tomas say I'm head he knew this afternoon why to see honoree 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 honoree 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 some pretty heroic Audrey Fialka I came to see me only at home wasn't the Gestapo they told me they know who your wife is that she is this white mouse they're 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 well you think she could be Nazis take them burn in hell she's not like 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 [Music] 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 well how could I have keep 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 on me 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 was potentially too great a sacrifice for her there you you murdered my son damn leave it my dad do you know what happened to him sir kill me started with a traitor you warned us about remover well Illyria was rotting in jail he came by information that he needed to pass on to the Marseille resistance a prisoner he trusted was about to be released so he gave him a message to pass the laundry using a code that you'd recognize the prisoner was a Gestapo agent they stopped out 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 honor he 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 made executed but unreasonably was that he was he was her husband when I asked Nancy about honoré and how she coped with his his death she had a very faraway look at her eye and she said to me I loved him honorary fee akka 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 on rueake was the love of her life [Music] you

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 27,584

Keywords: history history documentary funny history fun history school, timeline, nancy wake, bbc documentary, documentary history, full length documentaries, full documentary, absolute history, ww2, ww2 documentary, nancy wake documentary, nancy wake interview, nancy wake the white mouse, WWII, second world war movies best full movie, second world war documentary, french documentary, secret agent documentary, bbc documentary secret agent, documentaire agent secret

Id: Dr2JMuVc644

Length: 67min 48sec (4068 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 01 2019