The Woman With the 5 Million Franc Price on Her Head

In researching my book The Light Over London I was continually amazed at the many—often unsung—ways women contributed to the war effort in Britain during World War II. The Lightseekers is an ongoing series of articles that highlights some of their work and the ways they brought light to Britain in one of its darkest times.

One of my favorite bars in London is called the American Bar in the Stafford Hotel on St. James Place. You can imagine my delight then when I realized that the American Bar was also a favorite haunt of Nancy Wake, one of the most dynamic, fascinating spies of World War II.

Born in New Zealand in 1912 and raised in Australia, Wake ran away from home at 16. She used £200 that she’d inherited from an aunt to get herself to New York City and London where she trained as a journalist. In the 1930s, she was a European correspondent for the Hearst newspaper group, and while she was working in Vienna she witnessed the rise of the Nazi party and its terrorism of Jewish people.

Wake was living in Marseille with her French industrialist husband, Henri Edmond Fiocca, when Germany invaded in 1940. As an interned person, she quickly became involved in the fight against the Germans as a courier for the French resistance. At this time, she also began to work for Captain Ian Garrow’s escape network, which smuggled Allied internees, POWs and other people out of France to Britain.

Wake’s status as the wife of a wealthy industrialist afforded her privileges others didn’t have including the ability to travel more freely than most people. However, Wake also freely admitted to using her sexuality to move through German checkpoints, calling herself “a flirtatious little bastard.”

“A little powder, a little drink on the way, and I’d pass their posts and wink and say, ‘Do you want to search me?’”

Wake was so successful as an agent that the Gestapo began calling her the “White Mouse” because, despite suspecting her of working for the resistance, the Germans could never catch her doing anything criminal. To try to catch her, they tapped her phone and began to intercept her mail. Wake was eventually arrested in Toulouse but released after four days after one of her fellow resistance fights lied about her being his mistress, claiming that they needed to hide her identity from her jealous husband. (None of which was true.)

By November 1942, Wake was the most wanted person in Marseille with a 5 million franc price on her head. Garrow had been betrayed and arrested, but he was able to escape France into Spain. Wake continued his work, but eventually her life was in so much danger that became necessary for her to flee. She also escaped from France into Spain through the Pyrenees after seven attempts. (For those who have read The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, this is the crossing that is described in harrowing detail during parts of that narrative.)

After her escape, Wake made her way to Britain. However, her husband stayed behind and was captured. Despite being tortured, he refused to betray her, and the Gestapo executed him. Wake didn’t learn of his death until after the war.

In Britain, Wake joined the Special Operations Executive. She was a good shot, fearless, and fiesty. Vera Atkins, who oversaw all SOE agents in France, called her “a real Australian bombshell” who “put the men to shame by her cheerful spirit and strength of character.”

““A little powder, a little drink on the way, and I’d pass their posts and wink and say, ‘Do you want to search me?’””

Wake would go on to prove that strength of character over and over. She once parachuted into Auvergne where she was discovered tangled up in a tree by Captain Henri Tardivat who ran a group of rural guerrillas fighting against the occupation (a maquis). He reportedly said, “I hope that all trees in France bear such beautiful fruit this year.”

“Don’t give me that French shit,” she replied.

Wake recruited members to the maquis, and was involved in multiple attacks on key strategic points including bridges, convoys, and railway track. She once rode a bicycle 190 miles and back in 72 hours through German checkpoints in order to send a message to London when her wireless operator was killed. (She later called this “bike ride” her proudest moment.) She could also be ruthless, such as the time when she killed an SS man with her bare hands or when resistance men were dithering about killing a girl who was a German spy. Wake said she’d kill the girl herself if they wouldn’t. The men finally performed the execution themselves.

The maquis Wake operated in was such a thorn in Germany’s side that 22,000 soldiers were sent to defeat them. The maquisards suffered only 100 casualties. The Germans suffered 1,400.

After the war, Wake was widely decorated, receiving honors including three Croix de Guerre, the U.S. Medal of Freedom, and Britain’s George Medal. She continued to work in intelligence at the British Air Ministry—with a brief stint in Australia for a political career that never got off the ground—before marrying an RAF officer in 1957 and moving back to Australia.

Wake’s husband died in 1997, and in 2001 she moved back to London, taking up residence at the Stafford Hotel. It had been a haven for British servicemen and American GIs during the war, and the general manager of the American Bar at the time was a fellow resistance worker from Marseilles. She would visit the bar every morning for her first gin and tonic of the day, and there is now a plaque commemorating her in the bar.

At the end of her life, Wake moved to a home for ex-service men and women, where she lived until her death in 2011 at the age of 98. Her ashes were scattered at a ceremony in the woods outside Verneix in France. Determined that it should be a celebratory occasion, Wake left instructions that there should be a boisterous drinks party afterward.

Wake wrote about her extraordinary experiences in her autobiography The White Mouse. If you are interested in reading more about her and other women spies in World War II, I would recommend The Women Who Spied for Britain by Robyn Walker.

Read every story of the The Lightseekers in the series archive. You can also learn more about their stories by following the hashtag #TheLightseekers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The Women Who Defended Britain's Skies

In researching my upcoming release, The Light Over London, I was continually amazed at the many—often unsung—ways women contributed to the war effort in Britain during World War II. The Lightseekers is an ongoing series of articles that highlights some of their work and the ways they brought light to Britain in one of its darkest times

In April 1941, a new kind of job opened up for the women of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women’s branch of the British Army. In order to be taken on, they needed to show great aptitude as well as quick reflexes and a natural courage. They were tested, assessed, and those who made the cut became Gunner Girls.

Also called Ack Ack Girls, these ATS women were given the rank of gunner as they were now attached to the Royal Artillery (RA). They were part of mixed batteries—units with women and men—and they took over some of the vital roles previously performed by men in an effort to free those men up for other jobs.

In an Ack Ack unit, a spotter would work the powerful tool used to locate and identify enemy aircraft. Two women would operate the height and range finder that would gather the information to properly aim the gun. Then that information would be sent over to the predictor, which would calculate and account for both the forward movement of a plane and the time it would take a shell to reach it in order to damage or shoot down the plane. Once trained, the Gunner Girls could do this all in a matter of seconds.

Gunner Girls learning how to use an identification telescope on September 24, 1941. (Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum)

One thing the Gunner Girls didn’t do, however, was pull the trigger on guns. When arguing for the inclusion of women in Ack Ack units, General Sir Frederick Pyle, Commander in Chief of Air Defense, agreed to the government demand that women would not fire the guns. This is because, even in the middle of a war, the government didn’t believe it was appropriate for “life givers to be life takers.”

By the time the first mixed battery units were trained up and dispatched to their first assignments, the London Blitz was over. However, the Luftwaffe still conducted bombing raids in the capital and across Britain throughout the war.

In their book The Girls Who Went to War, Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, record the story of Jessie Ward, a Gunner Girl. After the war, Jessie remembered speaking to a woman in a fish and chips shop in Aberdeen who sounded as though she was from Hull. Jessie told her that she’d been stationed in Hull during the war as part of an Ack Ack unit, and the woman said, “Oh, you don’t know what they meant to use in the city. Whenever we heard the guns open up, it gave us a bit of hope to hold onto.”

My own family, the Kellys, would’ve been familiar with the 33rd (Western) Anti-Aircraft Battalion that defended Liverpool throughout the war. Liverpool, a major port, was one of the cities bombed at the same time as the London Blitz, and it also experienced its own sustained bombing that came to be known as the Liverpool Blitz. Ack Ack units from the 33rd were stationed around the city and its outskirts and in surrounding towns like Stockport, Birkenhead, and Boodle to try to protect the buildings and people of Liverpool.

My grandparents’ house was one of the 6,500 homes bombed during one of these raids on Liverpool, although fortunately no one in our family was hurt. Family lore has it that my Uncle Nick was actually born during an air raid in the middle of the Liverpool Blitz.

The last air raid of Liverpool happened place in January 1942.

There is now a memorial to the women of the Ack Ack Command in the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

Read every story of the The Lightseekers in the series archive. You can also learn more about their stories by following the hashtag #TheLightseekers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The Woman Who Held Paris

In researching my upcoming release, The Light Over London, I was continually amazed at the many—often unsung—ways women contributed to the war effort in Britain during World War II. The Lightseekers is an ongoing series of articles that highlights some of their work and the ways they brought light to Britain in one of its darkest times.

Noor Inayat Khan was one of the most well-known female spies of World War II, but little about her background makes her the obvious choice for espionage. Yet an artless personality hid a steeliness that led her to defy her superiors and remain at her station in Paris during the height of the war, continuing the dangerous work of operating a radio to enable the British to continue to supply the French Resistance and save the lives of downed pilots.

Born on New Year’s Day in 1914, Khan was the daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Amina Sharada Begum (originally known as Ora Ray Baker). After living in Moscow, the family moved to France and then to Britain where Harat Inayat Khan would become leader of the Sufi Order, a form of Islam that preached love, tolerance, and pacifism. 

Hon. Assistant Section Officer Noor Inayat Khan (code name Madeleine), courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

It’s hardly surprising then that Harat Inayat Khan’s daughter would grow up to become a pacifist herself. However, in 1939, as Germany began to invade its neighbors, she decided that she needed to act. After enrolling to train as a Red Cross nurse in France but narrowly escaping the German invasion on one of the last boats to evacuate British citizen, Khan enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAFs). She was not British, and neither did she accept Britain’s policies wholesale; she told her recruitment officers that when the war ended she would campaign for Indian independence. However, she was accepted and selected to train as a wireless operator. Then, in October 1942, she was recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), likely for her radio skills and her fluency in English, French, Spanish, and German. 

While Khan excelled at all aspects of radio operation, there were concerns about how well she would hold up in the field. Her superiors believed she was too artless to be an agent, and she frightened easily. One of her officers recalled her reaction when she was put through the paces in a mock interrogation:

She was so overwhelmed, nearly lost her voice. As it went on she became practically inaudible. Sometimes there was only a whisper. When she came out afterwards, she was trembling and quite blanched.

However, despite some reservations about her suitability, the 29-year-old Khan was parachuted to Occupied Paris where wireless operators were desperately needed in 1943. She was given the code name Madeline and became the first female wireless operator stationed in France.

She initially made contact with PROSPER, a network bringing in arms from Britain for the French Resistance. However, shortly after she arrived, a double agent betrayed PROSPER and almost all of the high-level members of the network were arrested. The SOE ordered Khan to return to Britain, but she refused, going rogue and continuing to broadcast. Soon she was the only active wireless operator in the area surrounding Paris. 

Life on the run meant zipping around on a bicycle, hanging her conspicuous aerial wherever it might be reasonably hidden, transmitting her information, and quickly breaking her radio down before the Germans could track her signal and find her. Her broadcasts mostly concerned drops of arms and money, as well as the status of the resistance networks. She is also believed to have been “instrumental in facilitating the escape of 30 Allied airmen shot down in FRANCE,” according to a posthumous commendation.

Khan’s bravery was unquestionable. Wireless radios were large and bulky, and not discreet even when broken down into their parts. One story goes that she was riding the Metro in Paris when she was stopped by two German officers who wanted a look at her case. She told them that her radio was a film projector, and even opened it up to let them see. Incredibly, they didn’t recognize the radio in front of them or the woman named Madeline whom the Germans were so eager to find.

Ultimately, Khan was betrayed by another woman who sold Khan’s address to the Germans in October of 1943. When Khan got back to her apartment, the Gestapo was waiting for her. Not only did they find her transmitter, but they also found a school copybook in which she’d meticulously recorded all of her transmissions and security checks. This was directly against SOE orders, although there is some dispute about whether she misunderstood the SOE instruction, “Be very careful in the filing of your messages” to mean recording them down rather than transmitting, or “filing” them.

Either way, the German’s arrested Khan and interrogated her. They would go on to use her notebook to transmit messages as her until early 1944 when the SOE realized that something was amiss. Khan tried multiple times to escape from her prison in Paris but each time was captured and returned to her cell. Eventually she was taken to Pforzheim, a German prison, where she was badly mistreated and spent most of her days heavily shackled. 

On September 11, 1944, she and three other female prisoners were sent to Dauchau. Two days later, Khan and the other women were executed. Her last reported word was, “Liberte.”

No one knew what happened to the operative known as Madeline until after the war when Vera Atkins, a woman who had worked with Khan in the SOE, went searching for the agents who had gone missing in the war. Atkins realized that Khan had been mistakenly identified as a woman who had actually been killed at Natzweiler. Atkins was able to learn the truth of Khan’s death and inform the War Office which, in turn, told her family.

Khan was posthumously honored with an MBE, the British George Cross, and the French Croix de Guerre with gold star. Although her months operating in France were short, the information she was able to broadcast was considered invaluable during a time of extreme danger. Her incredible bravery and dedication to the cause is as remarkable as her death was tragic. 

Today she is remembered with a memorial bust of Khan—the first dedicated to an Asian woman—stands in Gordon Square in the Bloomsbury neighborhood of in London, as well as a number of plaques and other commemoration across Britain.

Read every story of the The Lightseekers in the series archive. You can also learn more about their stories by following the hashtag #TheLightseekers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.