There is more to the story of Nancy Wake than I let on
While reading and researching for my videos, I come across countless anecdotes and stories that for one reason or another don't make it into the final cut of the video. Nancy Wake was no exception.
While reading Nancy Wake's autobiography, "The White Mouse", towards the end it became hard to tell whether the stories contained therein were fact, or the product of years of retelling at the hotel bars whilst a gin and tonic was being imbibed.
The one story that many, including me, find hard to believe, is the tale told by Nancy in a much later post-war interview that she killed a German SS officer by giving the poor lad a 'judo' chop to the back of the neck.
In Nancy's own words:
They'd taught this judo-chop stuff with the flat of the hand at SOE, and I practised away at it. But this was the only time I used it -- whack -- and it killed him all right. I was really surprised.
One of my viewers on YouTube pointed out, quite correctly, that judo is all about throwing, and very particularly doesn't involve any chopping... My initial thought was that perhaps Nancy was of the generation before the spread and popular rise of Eastern martial arts across the Western world, and quite possibly could have mistaken judo for karate.
In any event, the story of the judo/karate chop has become as much of a legend as Nancy herself.
Nancy and the grenade-wielding drunk Maquisard
The story that never made it into the video, much to my regret now that I come to think of it, was the episode in which Nancy narrowly escaped death by the hands of one of her fellow Maquis fighters.
As Nancy recounted in her biography:
One day I was obliged to go to Vichy. When my business there was concluded I decided to treat myself to a good meal in an expensive black-market restaurant before returning to the forest. A member of an unruly group of men (whom, incidentally, I had refused to arm) had apparently been informed of my extravagance and decided I had been spending money to which his so-called ‘Resistance’ group was entitled. He was quite wrong... This ignorant and uncouth individual was airing his views about our British team in a café in a little village where I was due at midday... He became very, very inebriated and announced he was going to kill me. He then opened a case and displayed several grenades...
This village was old, with narrow streets. The only way a motorist could drive through it was to take a blind alleyway where a reflecting mirror warned of the traffic ahead. The café was only a few metres away.
I was early, and blissfully unaware of the drama about to unfold. When the would-be assassin heard a car approaching he took a grenade out of the case, removed the pin and held it in his hand. When he saw a woman in the car he went to throw it but he was so drunk he had forgotten the pin was out and it blew up in his hand. I saw the explosion and bits of human flesh all over the place, but it was a few minutes before I heard the story. I could not feel sorry for him. He and his men were the types who pretended to be members of the Resistance and at times gave it a bad name.
I wasn't sure what to believe when I first read the story. Could it be true that one of the Maquisards turned against Nancy and in a drunken rage attempted to kill her with a grenade?
I'm not sure...
But oh, how differently the story would have ended if it were true, and he had succeeded.
One final story that does seem to be true...
After the fighting and the end of a relatively unsuccessful political career, Nancy Wake spent her final years living at The Stafford Hotel in London. Lodging there on a permanent basis certainly would have set her back a few quid. Nancy lost everything in the war (a testament to her selflessness) and so did not have the funds to settle her bills.
My research suggests that many anonymous donors settled her bills, seeing to it that Nancy never fell into penury. As legend would have it, our good King Charles III, before he took the throne, was one of her greatest benefactors.
Whether true or not, that is a story I like to believe. Anyway, I will leave you with that. Until next time!
