Noor Inayat Khan - British Spy
Noor Inayat Khan was born in Moscow in 1914 to an Indian father and an American mother. The family moved to France where they settled. Noor went on to study child psychology at the Sorbonne. After her family were forced to escape Nazis occupied France and travel to England at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Noor made a life-changing decision. She joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and trained as a wireless operator – the year was 1940. Her fluency in French caught the attention of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Britain’s secret wartime organisation formed to spy in Nazi-
Noor secretly entered France in June 1943, her code name was ‘Madeleine’ and her mission was to maintain secret radio contact between the French Resistance and London. She transmitted vital intelligence back to Britain whilst avoiding capture by the Gestapo. Wireless operators had to keep moving constantly in order to dodge German signal-detection teams – many of the agents in Noor’s network were arrested. Noor was able to dodge the signal-detection teams for three more months and continue transmitting information.
In October 1943 Noor was arrested by the Gestapo – she’d been betrayed. Although interrogated, she didn’t break, she refused to give away any information. On the morning of 13th September 1944 Noor Inayat Khan was executed at Dachau concentration camp. After the war she was posthumously awarded the George Cross, the UK’s highest civilian honour for bravery and France awarded her the Croix de Guerre.