How old is nancy wake now

Wake, a onetime freelance journalist whose life careered along a path that Hemingway might have sketched, from impoverished childhood to high-society hostess in the south of France to decorated heroine of the French Resistance during World War II, died last Sunday in London. Wake, known as the White Mouse, died on Sunday in a hospital in London, where she had lived since She was Wake worked manning the dangerous escape routes through France helping to save the lives of many Allied troops and Jewish refugees.

Nancy Wake had to escape from France after the Gestapo German secret police started to close in on her. She went to England, where she was trained to become a spy. After this training, she parachuted back into France to resume working with the French Resistance. Nancy Wake had a difficult childhood growing up in Sydney. Her mother was a dogmatically strict religious woman. Her father was a journalist who went to live in New Zealand to make a movie about Maoris.

He sold the family home and never came back, resulting in his family being evicted. Having earlier witnessed the brutality of the Nazi regime as a journalist, Wake joined the French Resistance in and risked her life in a network helping Jewish people and Allied servicemen to escape. Her family moved to Sydney, where she grew up, when Nancy was just 20 months old.

She ran away from home at the age of 16 and found work as a nurse, but a windfall enabled her to leave Australia for Europe in Wake settled in Paris, working for the Hearst group of newspapers as a journalist. As the s progressed, the rise of German Fascism formed the basis of many of Wake's stories. In she visited Vienna and Berlin where the overt and violent anti-Semitism formed in her a desire to oppose Nazism. In November she married Henri Fiocca, a wealthy industrialist, in Marseilles.

Six months later Germany invaded France. Wake and Fiocca joined the fledgling Resistance after France's surrender in Her growing involvement in the Resistance saw Wake and her husband assisting in the escape of Allied servicemen and Jewish refugees from France into neutral Spain.

Fearful of being captured she too fled Marseilles and, after several thwarted attempts and a brief period in prison, Wake escaped across the Pyrenees. Working in the Auvergne region, Wake was engaged in organising parachute drops of arms and equipment, and after D-Day, was involved in combat with bodies of German troops sent to destroy the Maquis. Upon liberation, Wake learned that her husband, Henri, had been killed by the Gestapo in August I only volunteered for it not because I'm brave but because I was the only one who could do it, being a woman.

I couldn't stand up, I couldn't sit down. I couldn't do anything. I just cried. But despite the international recognition, it took 60 years for Australia to honour her service, awarding her the Companion of the Order of Australia in It is believed Ms Wake's health had recently deteriorated and she was admitted to the Kingston Hospital two weeks ago with a chest infection. In accordance with her wishes, she will be cremated privately and her ashes scattered at Montlucon in central France next spring.

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Ms Wake's group lost theirs during a raid by German troops. She had lived in London since More on:. Top Stories Celebrity cosmetic surgeon's 'barbaric' attempt to fix a tummy tuck under local anaesthetic. Live: 'I love you, Dad': Touching family tribute shared as entertainment 'master' Bert Newton farewelled. Prime Minister says he does not believe he has told a lie in public life. Live: Victorians on alert for severe weather as heavy rain and high winds forecast to batter the state.