This is a Squiz Kids Podcast, your fresh take on what's happening in the world around you.
Are you ready to be inspired and amazed by some extraordinary acts of bravery?
Hang onto your hats!
This is your Squiz Kids Shortcut to Australian Women War Heroes, the podcast where dive into the who, what, when, where, why and how of the big news stories.
I'm Amanda Bower. And I'm Bryce Corbett.
Bryce September the second marked the anniversary of the end of World War II way back in 1945.
Almost one million Australians served in that terrible war, including around 50 ,000 women.
Today we'll take you through who is Australia's most decorated woman, why Nancy Wake was the most wanted woman in Germany and where Ruby Boy Jones fought off crocodiles to serve her country.
Listen carefully, there's a squiz at the end!
Who? Now Bryce, the name Joyce Nankerville Lock is unknown to many Australians, but she was one of the great humanitarians of the 20th century.
Of course, a humanitarian is someone who spends much of their life helping other people, whose priority in life is to make other people's lives better.
Yeah, and Joyce and her husband, Sidney, started doing that in the 1920s when they left Australia and worked in Ireland, Greece, and Poland to help people who were fleeing violence or war or whose lives were somehow troubled.
When World War II started, they leaped into action and they were part of a plan to get more than 2 ,000 people out of Poland, which the German army had occupied.
2000! That is a lot of lives to save. Yeah, and Joyce was personally responsible for 1 ,000 of them.
Woah. Picture this Bryce.
There's a train rumbling from Poland through Romania, with women and children just dotted among the carriages.
They've got beach bags, it looks like a perfectly normal trip to the seaside.
But in actual fact, the women have jewelry and gold sewn inside the hems of their dresses.
Everyone has fake passports and papers.
No way. These 1 ,000 women and children are fleeing or running away from the German army.
The woman organizing it all is Joyce.
She's also on the train and she's pretending to be a nanny for some of the children.
So, what happened once they got to the seaside?
They took a ferry to Turkey and then Joyce, whose codename was Pied Piper, called the British Navy and insisted that a ship come in the dead of night to pick up all the refugees and take them to safety in Greece, where Joyce and her husband were living.
Amazing. Now, just to remind everyone that refugees are people who've had to escape their homes because their lives were in danger.
Now, once these 1000 women and children got to Greece, Joyce helped them get food and shelter and work and when the Germans then invaded Greece, she helped them all to escape one more time to Israel.
Wow. For her life saving bravery, Joyce was awarded 11 medals from the governments of Australia, Greece, Poland, Romania and Britain, which makes her Australia's most decorated woman.
Now that doesn't mean she's had paintings done on her, it means that she's been given medals.
She's a Christmas tree that she's had decorations put on.
What an incredible story.
Now it was the British military who gave Joyce her code name of Pied Piper, but it was the Germans, the enemies of the Australians back in World War Two, who gave Nancy Wake her nickname.
Why was she called the White Mouse?
Why? Bryce, do you know how it's really hard to catch a mouse?
You think you've cornered it and then somehow it dodges and twists and sneaks away?
Uh huh. Well, the German secret police called the Gestapo knew that there was a woman in France helping people escape.
People they wanted to catch. Every time they thought they were going to capture her, she seemed to somehow disappear.
So they called her Divisor mouse or the white mouse.
She was the most wanted woman in World War Two.
Wow, that's saying something.
So what did Nancy Wake do to make the Germans so angry?
Well, what didn't she do basically this New Zealand born Australian raised woman was living in France and working as a journalist She'd seen Adolf Hitler's Nazis Firsthand in Vienna and Berlin and she didn't like what she saw and she swore to fight against them if she ever got the chance So as soon as war broke out she Immediately joined the French Resistance and of course the French resistance were people who secretly organised themselves to fight back against the Germans.
And so Nancy helped to run an escape route through France for Jewish refugees and soldiers who were fighting the Germans.
It was incredibly dangerous.
If she was caught, the Germans would surely have killed her.
Woah. So, when they began to close in on her, she had to use her own escape route to get to safety in England.
Wow. But it didn't take long for the English to realise how valuable she was though, and Nancy actually agreed to go back to France.
And she parachuted out of a plane into enemy territory.
Into the place where she knew the Germans were trying to catch her.
Oh my gosh! That is amazing!
What an extremely brave thing to do!
Nancy was one tough customer.
She was trained to blow up bridges.
Break German communication lines.
Amazing! Shoot, fight with her bare hands.
Incredible! Now, although Nancy won medals for her bravery from many other countries, it took until she was 98 years old for the Australian Government to recognise her as a hero.
What? One of her friends said, you know what, if her name had been Neil Wake, meaning if she was a man, then she probably would be a household name.
Absolutely. Even today, less than 20 % of Australian soldiers are women.
And back in the 1940s and 1950s, many people thought it was inappropriate for women to fight in wars.
Now, Nancy, on the other hand, said, I don't see why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit them balaclavas.
She did not want to stay home and knit warm hats, which is what balaclavas are.
Nancy wanted to be part of the action.
Right. Apparently, some of the men fighters were initially a little bit against the idea of Nancy being with them and sometimes being in charge.
But once they saw how tough and brave she was they absolutely respected her and her orders.
Amazing. Now, speaking of brave, Amanda, you mentioned that another Aussie war hero, Ruby Boy Jones, had to fight off crocodiles to serve her country.
So where was that happening?
Where? Ruby was Australia's only woman coastwatcher.
So the coastwatchers in World War II were a network of radio operators in the Pacific Islands.
Okay. And their job was to use the radio to send reports through to the military about the weather and the movement of the enemy.
Ruby was our Coast Watcher on Vanna Koro in the Solomon Islands, which are north of Australia.
Okay, so how did Ruby get the Coast Watcher job?
Well, her husband was working on Vanna Koro and the original Coast Watcher who was a man was leaving to join the Australian Air Force.
He trained Ruby to do the job temporarily.
Yeah. And when his replacement never arrived, she stayed on.
Right! In fact, Ruby was so loyal to that job that when the Japanese began to occupy surrounding islands and all the other Australians and New Zealanders were evacuated, Ruby and her husband decided to stay.
Wow! At one point they went without getting any supplies for 10 months, so they were living just of fish and coconuts and some veggies that they were growing.
Unbelievable! Did the Japanese know she was there?
Oh, yes. So they actually sent a message over the radio saying, calling Mrs. Boy, Japanese Commander, say, you get out.
That didn't deter her though.
So Ruby and her husband decided to move the radio out of their house and into the jungle because the Japanese had bombed them once and Japanese boats were trying to find a way through the treacherous reef surrounding Vanakoro.
How scary. Absolutely.
Ruby was tough though.
There was a bridge over a river that was between her house and the radio, and when the bridge collapsed, she just pushed a flat -bottom boat over the croc -infested waters four times a day to file her reports.
The information that she sent through was really important for two separate battles.
But because her job was considered voluntary, unlike the men coastwatchers, she never actually got paid for her wartime service.
Are you kidding? Ruby Boy Jones, Nancy Wake and Joyce Nancoville Lock all lived long lives after the war, but are no longer alive today.
There is no doubt, though, Bryce, that they will never be forgotten for their tough spirits, their determination to help others and all those lives that they saved.
Absolutely. They are true Australian heroes.
They really are. Time for the Ss Quiz.
This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you've been listening.
Question number one.
Joyce Nancaville -Loch pretended to be travelling to where when she helped women and children escape Poland?
Yeah that's right she was pretending to go to the seaside or the beach. Question number two.
What nickname did the German secret police give Nancy Wake?
She was the white mouse!
Extra points if you remembered it in German.
Die weiße Maus! Question number three.
What was the name of the job that Ruby Boy Jones had on the island of Vanekoro?
Yeah that's right she was a coast watcher!
That's all we have time for today.
Thanks for joining us as we explored the who, what, how, where, when and why of Australian women war heroes.
Now get out there and have a most excellent day.
Over and out.
