Nancy Wake: A Biography of Our Greatest War Heroine

Author(s): Peter FitzSimons

Biographies / Memoirs

The number one bestselling biography of our greatest war heroine - over 84,000 copies sold in its first two formats. In the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person. As a na ve, young journalist, Nancy Wake witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. From that moment, she declared that she would do everything in her power to rid Europe of the Nazis. What began as a courier job here and there became a highly successful escape network for Allied soldiers, perfectly camouflaged by Nancy's high-society life in Marseille. Her network was soon so successful - and so notorious - that she was forced to flee France to escape the Gestapo, who had dubbed her "the white mouse" for her knack of slipping through its traps. But Nancy was a passionate enemy of the Nazis and refused to stay away. Supplying weapons and training members of a powerful underground fighting force, organising Allied parachute drops, cycling four hundred kilometres across a mountain range to find a new transmitting radio - nothing seemed too difficult in her fight against the Nazis. Peter FitzSimons reveals Nancy Wake's compelling story, a tale of an ordinary woman doing extraordinary things.


Product Information

Nancy Wake was an absolute heroine and bigger than life. When I finished this book, I felt I could never again pre-judge a little old woman because Nancy proves that you  simply never know what someone may have done in their younger days. Highly recommended -- April 

Peter FitzSimons is a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald. He is the author of nearly twenty books - including Tobruk and biographies of Nancy Wake, Kim Beazley, Nene King, Nick Farr-Jones, Steve Waugh and John Eales.

General Fields

  • : 9780732295257
  • : HarperCollins Publishers Australia
  • : HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
  • : 0.304
  • : October 2011
  • : 196mm X 127mm X 26mm
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Peter FitzSimons
  • : Peter FitzSimons
  • : 416
  • : 416
  • : very good
  • : very good
  • : 940.5337092
  • : 940.5337092
  • : en
  • : en
  • : Revised edition
  • : Revised edition
  • : Paperback
  • : Paperback