Nancy Wake

Nancy Wake, AC, GM (1912–2011), resistance fighter and secret agent. Wake was born in Wellington, New Zealand and was part Maori. She was brought up in in Sydney, Australia, but ran away at the age of 16 and became a nurse. After receiving a small inheritance, she travelled to New York and then to London, where she trained as a journalist. In 1939 she married Henri Fiocca, a wealthy French industrialist. When war broke out she was living in Marseilles and became an ambulance driver, but after the Franco-German armistice she helped refugees and military allies return to England via a network known as the Pat O’Leary line. The Nazis called her the’White Mouse’ because she skilfully evaded capture and this was the title of her autobiography (1985).She then went to England via Spain, where she joined the French section of the Special Operations Executive. She was awarded the George medal after the war, and returned to Australia, but some years after the death of her second husband, she emigrated to England and lived at the Stafford Hotel, London, which is where this bust is located. It had been an American and British forces club during the war.

Location: Bar of Stafford Hotel, St James Place, London SW1.