Passionate and impulsive, with a tendency to draw attention to herself, she was not the ideal undercover agent. Her superiors didn’t think she would last long behind enemy lines.
But Wake proved them wrong and died this week, aged 98, in a nursing home for retired veterans in London. Her death brought to an end a life of such daring, courage and glamour that she was the inspiration for the Sebastian Faulks novel Charlotte Gray, which was made into a film starring Cate Blanchett.
Much of Wake’s extraordinary life was lived under assumed identities. She carried papers as Nancy Fiocca (her married name) and Lucienne Cartier. Her official SOE identity was Andree, though a gay friend in the service called her ‘Gertie’. On one operation she was tagged ‘Witch’.
But the best-known name was the one the Gestapo gave her when they put her on their ‘most wanted’ list, with a five million franc price on her head — that of ‘the White Mouse’, because she always managed to wriggle out of their traps.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2023973/Blisteringly-sexy-killed-Nazis-bare-hands-5-million-franc-bounty-head-As-dies-98-extraordinary-story-real-Charlotte-Gray.html#ixzz1UZO7DdeZ
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