They Mocked a Housewife Until She Became the Gestapo's Most Wanted

The Gestapo put five million francs on her head and called her "the White Mouse" — because she slipped every trap they set. This is the true story of Nancy Wake, the housewife who became the Allies' most decorated servicewoman of World War II. In 1939 she was Madame Fiocca, a wealthy industrialist's wife hosting parties above the Marseille harbor. By 1943 she was the most wanted woman in occupied France: a courier for the escape line that smuggled Allied airmen over the Pyrenees, who flirted her way through German checkpoints and vanished every time the Gestapo closed in. When the network was betrayed, she escaped on foot over the mountains, trained with Britain's Special Operations Executive — one of just 39 women sent into occupied France — and parachuted back weeks before D-Day to help arm roughly 7,000 maquis fighters in the Auvergne. When a German offensive destroyed her network's radio codes, she got on a bicycle and rode roughly 500 kilometers through enemy checkpoints in under 72 hours to restore the link to London. Asked at the end of her life what she was proudest of, that ride was her answer. But victory carried a price she would not learn about until the liberation — and an ending no spy film would dare to write. Influencers of History tells the true stories of the people the textbooks skipped — pirate queens, secret agents, and underdogs who beat empires and were forgotten anyway. If that's your kind of history, subscribe for the next one. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Gestapo's Most Wanted 1:25 A Runaway from New Zealand 2:02 Vienna, 1933: The Vow 3:44 Madame Fiocca 4:46 When France Fell 5:31 The White Mouse 6:55 The Network Breaks 8:23 One of Thirty-Nine 9:23 The Drop 10:26 Madame Andrée and 7,000 Men 11:29 Twenty-Two Thousand Against Seven 12:14 The Bike Ride 14:05 Taking the Fight to Them 14:49 Liberation — and the Bill 15:52 The Longest Victory This documentary combines archival footage and photographs with AI-assisted period recreations. SOURCES & FURTHER READING Nancy Wake — The White Mouse (autobiography, 1985) Peter FitzSimons — Nancy Wake: A Biography of Our Greatest War Heroine (2001) Russell Braddon — Nancy Wake: The Story of a Very Brave Woman (1956) FOOTAGE CREDITS 100-jarige geschiedenis van de telefoon Weeknummer, 76-33 - Open Beelden - 22235 by Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid - CC-BY-SA - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... American Parade in Paris, France by US National Archives - CC-BY - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Lefkosia border zone by Andy Asquelt - CC-BY - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Parachute - Landing - 001 by Leo za1 - CC-BY-SA - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Reuven Rivlin visit to the Qalandia checkpoint, July 2018 by Israel Police - CC-BY-SA - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... #NancyWake #WWII #History #Documentary #FrenchResistance