On my recent visit to London following the AGM League AGM at Windsor on 15 April 2023, I paid my respects to Noor Khan at her memorial in Gordon Square, a short walk from Euston Station.
Her memorial, in a quiet corner of the quiet, leafy gardens frequented by residents and university students, was unveiled by HRH The Princess Royal on 8 November 2012 and is lovingly maintained by the Noor Khan Memorial Trust.
I laid some spring flowers amongst the other many flower tributes and poppy wreaths, clear signs that she is revered by many and most certainly not forgotten.
Noor was the daughter of Hazart Inayat Khan (great grandson of Tipu Sultan), Noor (meaning light of womanhood) was born in Moscow on 1 January 1914. Noor was of a diverse heritage with her father working as a musician and teacher of Sufism while her mother Ora Ray Baker was an American from New Mexico who met Hazart while he was travelling in the USA.
In 1914 on the eve of the First World War, the family moved from Russia to the UK with the young Noor attending a kindergarten in Notting Hill. In the early 1920s the nomadic family moved again, this time settling in a house near Paris which had been left by a supporter of the Sufi movement. When her father died in 1927 Noor became head of the family looking after her mother and the younger members of the family, giving the confidence and abilities she would later use in her wartime role. She proved to be an intelligent if dreamy student studying psychology and music at the Sorbonne. After her studies she made a name for herself writing children’s stories, the most famous of which her “Twenty Jataka Tales” was published in 1939.
It was during the Second World War that Noor was to earn her place in history. With the German invasion her family fled to Britain arriving in June 1940. Noor’s pacifist upbringing did little to discourage her from helping the war effort and she seemed to find war exciting. In November 1940 aged 26 she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and it was here that she learned her wireless operating skills which were to become so important to her in her later role.
In 1942 she was recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) F (French) section due to her wireless and language skills. She was a less than ideal trainee with many instructors expressing concerns about her ability and aptitude for the job. During a mock interrogation she broke down in tears and appeared terrified. in fact she failed to complete several aspects of her SOE training but she spoke fluent French and was a good wireless operator and the need in the Paris area was great.
Noor became the first female radio operator (women sent previously had been couriers) to be sent to France by SOE. Code named ‘Madeleine’ also known as operator ‘Nurse’ Noor landed in France on the night of 16/17 June 1943 travelling on a Lysander aircraft favoured by SOE for the infiltration of agents. Together with two other women Diana Rowden (‘Chaplin’) and Cecily Lefort (‘Teacher’) Noor made her way to Paris.
This was not a good time for SOE as in the following six weeks many of the radio operators in the Paris area were caught by the Germans and Vichy French authorities. Noor continued despite becoming very isolated, frequently moving from place to place and avoiding capture with skill and daring. The normally quiet Noor seemed to thrive on the danger and refused offers to be withdrawn back to Britain.
Finally on 1 October 1943 Noor’s luck ran out when she was betrayed by another SOE agent to the Germans, possibly by the double agent Henri Dericourt or by Renee Garry who may have betrayed Noor for money or out of jealousy due to her rivalry with Noor for the affection of a male SOE agent. After a fierce struggle with the Gestapo officer sent to arrest her she was taken to the SD HQ at 84 Avenue Foch. Noor proved very resilient to interrogation and repeatedly tried to escape, once climbing out onto an upper floor drainpipe after asking to take a bath and explaining to her guards that a lady does not bathe in front of men. While the guards waited outside she climbed out of the bathroom window. Hans Kieffer, at that time head of the Gestapo in Paris, made reference to Noor’s composure and resistance to questioning in his diaries.
Despite the fact that Noor told the Germans nothing they did find her code books and a diary of her messages allowing them to send false messages in her name. A few in SOE suspected due to discrepancies in the messages that she had been captured but these concerns were dismissed by senior officers. Due to this the Germans captured three more SOE agents on landing.
Due to her repeated attempts at escape and the failure of questioning, Noor was moved to Germany at the end of November 1943 and imprisoned at Pforzheim. Here she was treated as a dangerous prisoner with her hands and feet chained and kept in solitary confinement. Despite this harsh treatment and likely torture at the hands of her captors Noor still gave nothing away and was defiant to the end. On 11 September 1944 Noor along with several other prisoners was moved the notorious Dachau concentration camp, two days later after a vicious beating at the hands of the SS guard Wilhelm Ruppert, Noor Inayat Khan and three other female agents were taken to some woods near the camp and shot. A Dutch prisoner later testified that defiant to the end Noor’s last word was a shouted “Liberte!” Noor was posthumously awarded the highest British civilian award for gallantry, the George Cross.
Taken from:
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/people_noor_khan.html
George Cross citation
The announcement of the award of the George Cross was made in the London Gazette of 5 April 1949. The full citation reads:
The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the posthumous award of the GEORGE CROSS to:— Assistant Section Officer Nora INAYAT-KHAN (9901), Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.
Assistant Section Officer Nora INAYAT-KHAN was the first woman operator to be infiltrated into enemy occupied France, and she was landed by Lysander aircraft on 16 June, 1943. During the weeks immediately following her arrival, the Gestapo made mass arrests in the Paris Resistance groups to which she had been detailed. However, she refused to abandon what had become the principal and most dangerous post in France, even though she had been given the opportunity to return to England, because she did not want to leave her French comrades without communications and she also hoped to rebuild her group. Therefore, she remained at her post and did the excellent work which earned her a posthumous Mention in Despatches.
The Gestapo had a full description of her, but it only knew her code name “Madeleine”. It deployed considerable forces in its effort to catch her and break the last remaining link with London. After 3 months, she was betrayed to the Gestapo and taken to its H.Q. in the Avenue Foch. The Gestapo had found her codes and messages and as a result, it was now in a position to work back to London. It asked her to cooperate, but she refused and gave it no information of any kind. She was imprisoned in one of the cells on the 5th floor of the Gestapo H.Q. and she remained there for several weeks during which time she made two unsuccessful attempts to escape. She was asked to sign a declaration which stated that she would make no further escape attempts, but she refused to sign it and the Chief of the Gestapo obtained permission to send her to Germany for “safe custody” from Berlin. She was the first enemy agent to be sent to Germany.
Assistant Section Officer INAYAT-KHAN was sent to Karlsruhe in November 1943, and then she was sent to Pforzheim where her cell was apart from the main prison. She was considered a particularly dangerous and uncooperative prisoner. The Director of the prison was also interrogated and confirmed that Assistant Section Officer INAYAT-KHAN refused to give any information whatsoever, either about her work or her colleagues when she was interrogated by the Karlsruhe Gestapo.
She was taken to the Dachau Concentration Camp with three other female prisoners on 12 September 1944. On her arrival, she was taken to the crematorium and shot.
Assistant Section Officer INAYAT-KHAN displayed the most conspicuous courage, both moral and physical over a period of more than 12 months.Taken from:
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