![]() ![]() She fought in 1944 with 7,000 French liberation fighters against 22,000 SS troops. Within three years her reputation was so great that the Germans put a huge price on her head – 5 million francs. Nancy joined the French resistance in 1940. Anyway, I do thank you for leaving Nancy Wake – and have a wonderful birthday today! Muchest love, E.” Nancy Wake: celebrated and wanted Pat Guérisse wrote a book which you would enjoy if I could remember its title. When we had the enormous family reunion we travelled around the Puy-de-Dôme and Clermont-Ferrand where the family still live and work. ![]() Another factor for me was that the area she was working in is (my late husband’s) ancestral home, Mauriac. For such a decorated woman we are sadly uninformed of her in this country. My own memories added piquancy to my reading Nancy’s story. I have never forgotten how gentle he was rolling my eyelid back on a matchstick and extracting the offending speck, which was quite big. He was an absolute charmer too and once took a speck of dust out of my eye. ![]() I remember clearly how anxious his wife was about him in Korea but he was a brilliant surgeon and I can understand the attraction of doing a brilliant job on the seriously wounded. In the fifties, he went to Korea and won various medals for bravery, like rescuing wounded men from No Man’s Land. His son Patrique was a friend of my youngest brother. Dr Guérisse – Pat O’Leary – was in Cologne and he came to our house a lot. His alias was Patrick Albert “Pat” O’Leary his escape line was dubbed the Pat Line. Pat O’Leary was Major General Comte Albert-Marie Edmond Guérisse (GC, KBE, DSO) who organized escape routes with Nancy for downed Allied pilots during WW2. My father, as I’ve told you, was a British liaison officer with the Belgians in Germany in the early fifties. You were quite right about “Nancy”, un-put-down-able! What was even more astounding was that she was so heavily involved with Pat O’Leary, whom I knew. Imagine my surprise to receive the following email on 8 September from the friend to whom I lent the Russell Braddon Nancy Wake biography: “Happy Birthday! Hope today comes up to expectations. Meanwhile, I went off to Sainte Baume to celebrate my seventy-first birthday. Her late husband’s mother was French, a resident of America until later in her life when she returned to her ancestral roots in Mauriac – Nancy’s stamping ground during her Resistance work. When I finished reading it I lent the book to a friend, now in her eighties, assuring her that she wouldn’t be able to put it down. In the interim decades, I had come to know France well and Nancy’s courage and the geographical terrain in which she worked now made a tremendous impact. Their searches drew fruit and some months later the book arrived. In June this year, 2017, I was invited to Olympia’s fabulous Book Fair and was introduced to the Birds, Giles (O.B.E.) and Ali, whose stand prompted me to ask for Russell Braddon’s biography of Nancy Wake – which has long since vanished from my own library. ![]() That was way back in the last century – in the late seventies. We chatted a while and went our separate ways. I had actually read Russell Braddon’s remarkable biography and I knew at once who she was: Nancy Wake! The woman whom the Gestapo had code-named the White Mouse! I gasped, and she chuckled, rather delighted at my recognition. She grinned at the scene and made a comment about white mice. Jasper and I hopped out of the car, an ancient Mazda held together by good luck, and repaired to the counter where I asked for a piece of steak for my cat.Ī woman of a certain age came in to pay for her petrol. I was driving from Springbrook, in south-east Queensland, to Mangrove Mountain in southern New South Wales, a distance of 900 kms, and had stopped at a rundown lean-to along the Pacific Highway which served as a petrol station. Nancy Wake and her then-husband had retired to Port Macquarie. I had the great good fortune to meet, very briefly, the legendary French Resistance leader, Nancy Wake, many years ago, when I was living in Australia. To become a member make sure that you sign up! See the red button top right of this site. You too can provide the occasional article or suggest article topics as a member of MyFrenchLife™ – MaVieFrançaise®. This article was contributed by reader-member Nigelle de Visme. ![]()
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