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Fearless matriarch of resistance

It was an extraordinary turn of events for the former Sydney schoolgirl who had travelled to London and Paris in the early 1930s to try her hand at journalism.

Working as a newspaper reporter, Wake found herself in Vienna where she saw Jews being whipped in public by Nazi SS troops. In 2003, she described to News Limited's then-London correspondent, Bruce Wilson, one of the horrors she witnessed in 1938.

"The Germans and Austrians had set up a kind of Catherine wheel and tied these Jews to it, and as it went around they were beating them and throwing things at them," she said.

"I thought . . . what had they done, poor bastards? Nothing. So I said, 'God almighty, it's a bit much and I've got to do something about it'."

She was a first-hand witness to the rise of Adolf Hitler and was reputed to have interviewed him. These experiences were the catalysts for her determination to fight against Nazi tyranny if she ever got the opportunity.

In 1939, Wake married Henri Fiocca, a wealthy French industrialist whom she met on the social rounds of Marseilles. He was an expert tango dancer and became the love of her life. But their champagne-and-caviar lifestyle was abruptly ended by the German invasion of France.

By 1940, Wake was running messages and smuggling food for the French resistance, the Maquis. She branched out into helping downed Allied airmen escape capture and returning them to Britain. It has been estimated that she helped more than 1000 airmen escape.

It was perilous work despite her cover as the wife of a respectable businessman. She lived on her sharp wits.

"I'd see a German officer on the train or somewhere, sometimes dressed in civvies, but you could pick 'em. So, instead of raising suspicions I'd flirt with them, ask for a light and say my lighter was out of fuel," she recalled.

She told how she would get beautifully dressed and hang around making dates with Germans to get information.

"A little powder and a little drink on the way, and I'd pass their posts and wink and say, 'Do you want to search me?' God, what a flirtatious little bastard I was."

But in 1943, Gestapo agents were closing in. One day, she took flight. Wake told her husband she was going shopping and would soon return. They never saw each other again.

It took several attempts to cross the Pyrenees into Spain and on one occasion she was held and interrogated by the Vichy French collaborators of the German occupiers. She eventually reached Britain where she persuaded the Special Operations Executive to train her as a spy.

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