Nancy Wake: A menace or a hero?
Wake demonstrates that boldness can win the day in high stakes situations. She is someone you’d want to fight with and not against.
Parachuted into German-occupied France as a British agent in 1944, Nancy Wake joined partisans in the Allier Department and became ‘chef du parachutage’ – coordinating the British airdrops of supplies – weapons and ammunition, along with boots and uniforms, and money to pay the soldiers. Wake was not satisfied with a logistics role, she insisted on joining attacks on the Germans.
Wake and partisans targeted a munitions factory. The plan was to silently take out the sentries at each of four gates, then to gain access and place their explosives. She was behind one of the sentries when he unexpectedly turned and saw her. She leapt for him, chopped him in the neck bare-handed and broke his neck.
Wake was energetic and socially dominant. She was antagonistic towards the enemy (and also some colleagues). I assessed her according to three traits that make up ‘psychopathy’ – which comprises lack of empathy, poor behavioural control and anti-social behaviour.
She was bold, showing remarkable chutzpah in job interviews and when interrogated by German officers. She could be impulsive. When angry or at risk she defaulted to attack. There is evidence of meanness. After ordering the execution of a spy she ate her breakfast croissant while watching the firing squad: “I was not a very nice person, and it didn’t put me off my breakfast. After all, she had an easy death.”
Especially bold and mean, Wake could be described as a psychopath. This profile enabled Wake to take on the role of a highly effective leader in the chaos of a guerilla war. Paradoxically, after the war, she settled into the role of a homemaker. She was bored, but not murderous: “It's dreadful because you've been so busy and then it all just fizzles out.”
Wake was not a rule-follower. Going for a job as a journalist and asked about her experience of Egypt she emphasised that she’d been there several times, that she loved it and could speak and write Egyptian. The interviewer was smart – to check her claim of Egyptian language skills, he dictated a story – which Wake transcribed in Egyptian (Pitman shorthand written right to left), then she read the story back to him. Wake had never been to Egypt, but she got the job: “I wanted the job … Gospel truth. I was so good at that kind of thing, I should have been a criminal.”
Wake was a take-charge leader, ensuring that things were done her way. She was particularly skilled at taking the initiative in high-stakes situations. She was challenged by a prison commandant (she was casing the prison intending to spring an English agent held there). The commandant called her out about the 50,000 francs she had received via wire, which she was going to use to bribe one of his guards. He was suspicious about what she planned to do with such a large sum of money. She replied: “that might be a lot of money to you Monsieur, but I assure you it is not a lot of money for me.
She sprang that English agent from imprisonment and certain death – at considerable risk to herself.
Wake had close relationships. She married Henri Fiocca in 1939. After she fled Vichy France in November 1942 Henri was captured, tortured and executed by the Gestapo. She was very fond of her commanding officer: “He was a lovely man, an Englishman of the old school, and I loved him, he was a gentleman, and he cared for each and every one of us.”
As an indication of why she would have valued loving support – she had a very close relationship with her father until she was 6. One day her father disappeared after having sold the family home in North Sydney out from under her mother and the six children. In contrast, her mother was cold and authoritarian. Nancy ran away at 16.
If you find that you fit some aspects of the psychopathic personality, you need to understand that many individuals with this disposition and live positive and constructive lives, while acknowledging, as Nancy Wake did, that it is possible to use these attributes to live an anti-social lifestyle.
A starting point is to clarify your positive, life-affirming, even people-friendly values. Start living up to these values – practice being nice to others.
How about impulsiveness? There is a useful ‘mindfulness’ technique – when you feel the anger (or other difficult emotion that triggers thoughtless action) – practice STOP:
stop what you are doing,
take a breath – or several
observe your thoughts and feelings – watch them rather than react to them
proceed with the advantage of having reflected on what action best helps you do the best thing
A useful approach to developing a new habit – such as the STOP method; practice ‘when, then’. Just as we all learned that when we come home from the supermarket we needed to wash our hands (‘when I get in from the supermarket, then I wash my hands’), pair the STOP with a trigger in your life. This could be noticing the brake lights of the cars you are stuck behind. The brake lights become your signal for STOP.
To help the new habit become part of your life, at the end of each day, review the examples of you practising STOP, or examples of being kind. You could keep a score if you’re competitive.
Giving yourself an acknowledgement for your efforts helps you persist. Remember you are doing this because it reinforces important values for you. For Nancy Wade, it was fighting evil and looking out for colleagues and loved ones.
Stewart Forsyth is an organisational psychologist and executive coach and also the author of Remarkable War Leaders – available as an eBook.