When asked to think of the most wanted resistance fighter of World War II, you might picture a defiant French person, certainly a man, perhaps wearing a beret and carrying all manner of concealed messages and weapons to right against the encroachment of Nazi Germany. The beret part isn't all that off, actually — French resistance fighters called the Maquis actually did sport the stylish headgear — but the gender part is all wrong. One of the most wanted resistance fighters of the whole war was actually a woman named Nancy Wake.

Wake was, upon first glance, an unlikely candidate. She was an Australian woman who'd run away from home, worked as a journalist, then joined French society, where she established herself as a lover of the finer things in life — and as a very ardent opponent of

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