Page 33 - All About History - Issue 53-17

Spies That Won WWII

Nancy was
determined to have
NANCY GRACE
a role in the war
AUGUSTA WAKE

Her life in jeopardy, the Nazis’ most
wanted agent survived the war

The most decorated female in Allied service infidelity of her husband ,
during World War II, Nancy Wake was continually Henri Fiocca. After severa ral
in danger in Nazi-occupied France. Undeterred, attempts, she reached
she risked her life initially as a courier for the London and volunteered d
French Resistance. She remained elusive, the for the SOE. Fiocca chose
Gestapo deeming her its most wanted enemy to remain in France. He
spy, nicknaming her the ‘White Mouse’, and fell into the hands of the e Nancy was
given many
placing a bounty of 5 million francs on her head. Gestapo and was torture ed
awards
Wake’s determination to thwart the Nazis to death without revealing
ng
grew from first-hand experience. Born in New Nancy’s whereabouts.
Zealand, she moved with her family to Australia, On the night of 29 April 1944, Wake
ran away from home at 16, and made her way to parachuted into France and joined the band of
New York City and London. She worked briefly Maquis fighters led by Captain Henri Tardivat “SHE ONCE RODE
as a nurse while learning the craft of journalism. in the Troncais Forest. She trained Maquis
During the 1930s she took a job as a European recruits and once rode a bicycle more than 500 A BICYCLE MORE
correspondent with Hearst Newspapers, kilometres to deliver a top-secret codebook.
During one raid she silenced a German sentry,
witnessing the brutality of the Nazi rise to power. delivering a fatal judo chop with her bare hands. THAN 500KM
With the outbreak of World War II, Nancy
Wake survived the war, receiving the George
joined the French Resistance. When the network Medal, The US Medal of Freedom, the French TO DELIVER A
she served was compromised, she was arrested
but released when the Germans believed Croix de Guerre, and other decorations for NOTEBOOK”
a friend’s concocted story of the supposed valour. She died in London in 2011 at age 98.

MERLIN JOHN MOE

MINSHALL Dual citizen of Britain and Norway

Serving with Ian Fleming in Naval fed false information to the Nazis
Along with his companion
Intelligence brought new adventure Tor Glad, John Moe landed at
Crovie on Scotland’s Moray
Merlin Minshall was an adventurer. After graduating from Firth, on 7 April 1941. The duo
London University, he set out in 1931 to become the first had been recruited by the
Englishman to sail across Europe to the Black Sea. An avid German Abwehr to operate
auto racer, he won the Italian Foreign Challenge in 1937 in Britain and commit acts
where Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini presented the of sabotage; however, they
trophy. Minshall later became first to drive an auto with an immediately approached
air-cooled engine across the Sahara. local authorities and were
With the outbreak of war in 1939, Minshall reported interrogated by MI5 and MI6.
for duty with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve where Both were turned under
he served under Ian Fleming for a time. In 1940, he the MI5 XX programme as
participated in a failed plan to block the Danube River double agents, committing
with barges to impede the flow of oil to Germany and led staged acts of sabotage
Operation Shamrock, a joint Naval Intelligence-SOE mission against worthless targets with
monitoring German U-boat traffic along coastal France. explosives supplied by the
In 1941, he assisted the hunt for the German battleship Germans. Nicknamed Mutt and
Bismarck while commanding a section at HMS Flowerdown, Jeff, they fed false information
a Sussex wireless station, and served in the Pacific. to the Abwehr by radio before
Minshall initially denied that Fleming had modelled the Allied invasion of North
James Bond after him but later went on to embrace the Africa, prompting Germany to
idea. Married four times, Minshall died aged 80 in 1987. Double agents Moe and Glad helped to divert
keep thousands of troops in thosuands of Nazis away from the fight
Scandinavia.
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