Futility Closet

In 1928 Nancy Wake ran away from her Australian home and into an unlikely destiny: She became a dynamo in the French resistance, helping more than a thousand people to flee the Germans and then organizing partisans to fight them directly. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the White Mouse, one of the bravest heroes of World War II. We'll also marvel at mailmen and puzzle over an expensive homework assignment. Intro: The town of Agloe, New York, was invented by a pair of mapmakers. F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise contains two hidden poems. Sources for our feature on Nancy Wake: Peter FitzSimons, Nancy Wake, 2001. Nancy Wake, The White Mouse, 1985. Russell Braddon, The White Mouse, 1956. "Dispatches," World War II 26:4 (November/December 2011), 16. "History in the Media," History Today 55:4 (April 2005), 9. "Sound Off," Leatherneck 85:6 (June 2002), 2. Adam Bernstein, "Nancy Wake, 'White Mouse' of World War II, Dies at 98," Washington Post, Aug. 9, 2011.