| Noor Inayat Khan |
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Noor Inayat Khan was a Wireless Operator in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). She was recruited by Captain Selwyn Jepson at Room 238 The War Office , Hotel Victoria, Northumberland Avenue, London, SW1 to join F Section of the Special Operations Executive and in early February 1943 she was sent to various SOE schools for training, including STS 5 Winterfold, STS 36 Boarmans and STS 52 Thame Park. 16/17 June 1943 , cryptonymed 'Madeleine'/W/T operator 'Nurse' she was flown to landing ground B/20A 'Indigestion' on a night landing double Lysander operation, code named Teacher/Nurse/Chaplain/Monk. She traveled to Paris and together with two other women ( Diana Rowden , code named Paulette/Chaplain, and Cicely Lefort , code named Alice/Teacher) joined the Physician Network led by Francis Suttill code named Prosper . In July 1943 a number of Physician network radio operators were arrested by the Sicherheitsdienst . In October 1943 the SD also arrested Inayat Khan and interrogated her at the SD Headquarters in Paris. She was not tortured but her interrogation lasted over a month. During that time, she attempted escape twice. Although Inayat Khan would not reveal any information about her activities under interrogation, the SD did find her notebooks which apparently contained all the messages that she had sent and received as an SOE operative. They were therefore easily able to read all this and subsequently imitated her in communication with London, who failed to investigate properly anomalies in the transmissions on her radio plans 'Nurse' subsequently 'Nurse Red' which indicated they were operating under enemy control. This link enabled the Germans to seize at their parachute landing three more agents sent to France. The princess was taken to Germany and imprisoned at Pforzheim in solitary confinement (she was considered dangerous and uncooperative). Inayat Khan continued to refuse to give any information on her work or her fellow operatives. On 11 September 1944 , Noor Inayat Khan, along with three other SOE agents, Yolande Beekman , Eliane Plewman and Madeleine Damerment , were moved to Dachau Concentration Camp. The other three women were lined up and forced to kneel, after which each was executed by a single shot to the head. Noor was shackled in chains for months and beaten until she was a bloody mess and then shot. Her last word was "Liberté" (Helm, Sarah. The Gestapo Killer Who Lived Twice. The Sunday Times Magazine, August 7 2005, p. 9). Princess Noor Inayat Khan, published writer of children stories and SOE agent code-named "Madeleine", was posthumously awarded a British mention in dispatches, a French Croix De Guerre with Gold Star and the George Cross . In 2004, a novel based loosely on her life entitled "The Tiger Claw" was published by Shauna Singh Baldwin . The same year French novelist Laurent Joffrin published "La princesse oubliée" also based on her life. A biography of her, entitled "Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan", was published by Shrabani Basu in 2006. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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