SS159A The White Mouse Nancy Wake

Description

Nancy Wake The White Mouse SOE Agent with German Officer Prisoner

In the early days of Thomas Gunn, we released a female resistance fighter, SS035.  She has been forever popular and we are constantly being asked to release further figures in a similar genre, so we have an all new female fighter in the form of Nancy Wake and a German SS Officer as her prisoner.

Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Wake grew up in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. By the 1930s, Wake was living in Marseille with her French industrialist husband, Henri Fiocca, when the war broke out. After the fall of France to Germany in 1940, Wake became a courier for the French Resistance led by Ian Garrow and, later, Albert Guerisse. As a member of the escape network, she helped Allied airmen evade capture by the Germans and escape to Spain. In 1943, when the Germans became aware of her, she fled to Spain and then went to the United Kingdom. Her husband was captured and executed.

After reaching Britain, Wake joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE) under the code name “Hélène”. On 29–30 April 1944 as a member of a three-person SOE team code-named “Freelance”, Wake parachuted into the Allier department of occupied France to liaise between the SOE and several Maquis groups in the Auvergne region, which were loosely overseen by Emile Couladon (code name “Gaspard”). She participated in a battle between the Maquis and a large German force in June 1944. In the aftermath of the battle, a defeat for the Maquis, she claimed to have bicycled 500 kilometers to send a situation report to SOE in London.

She was often very brazen when working in German occupied territory, she described her tactics like this: “A little powder and a little drink on the way, and I’d pass their (German) posts and wink and say, ‘Do you want to search me?’ God, what a flirtatious little b**astard I was.”

The Germans put out a reward for her and from then on Nancy often had to change her appearance to avoid recognition, this served her well as she survived the war in what was one of the most dangerous jobs for female officers at the time.

Immediately after the war, Wake was awarded the George Medal, the United States medal of Freedom, the Resistance medal, and awarded the Croix de Guerre, three times.
She later worked for the intelligence department at the British Air Ministry, attached to British embassies in Paris and Prague..

In 1985, Wake published her autobiography, The White Mouse. After 40 years of marriage, her second husband John Forward died at Port Macquarie on 19 August 1997. The couple had no children. She sold her medals to fund herself, saying, “There was no point in keeping them, I’ll probably go to hell and they’d melt anyway.” In 2001, Wake left Australia for the last time and emigrated to London.

She became a resident at the Stafford Hotel in St. James’ Place, near Piccadilly, formerly a British and American forces club during the war. She had been introduced to her first “bloody good drink” there by the general manager at the time, Louis Burdet. He also had worked for the Resistance in Marseille.

In the mornings she would usually be found in the hotel bar, sipping her first gin and tonic of the day and telling war stories. She was welcomed at the hotel, celebrating her ninetieth birthday there. The hotel owners absorbed most of the costs of her stay. In 2003, Wake chose to move to the Royal Star & Garter Home for Ex Service men and women, where she remained until her death in 2011.

SS159A.  Nancy & SS Officer – Black Hair
SS159B.  Nancy & SS Officer – Brown Wig

Stripped of his belt and pistol, on his knees, at the mercy of Marie or Theresa, what his future holds is unknown, it is up to collectors to decide.

SS159A.  $105.00/£99.00 Each
SS159B.  $105.00/£99.00 Each
Only 50 sets of each version released.