Noor Inayat Khan: An Indian Princess & British WW II Spy

Vikas Vaid

On Sep 13, 1944, a princess from India lay dead at Dachau concentration camp. She had been tortured by the Nazis and then shot in the head. Her name was Noor Inayat Khan.

The Germans knew her only as Nora Baker, a British spy who had gone into occupied France using the code name Madeline. She carried her transmitter from safe house to safe house with the Gestapo trailing her, providing communications for her Resistance unit.

Wireless operators in France had a life expectancy of six weeks. Noor was actively transmitting for over three times as long.

While she was in France, every other wireless operator in her network was slowly picked off until she was the last radio link between London and Paris. It was “the most dangerous and important post in France.”

She was offered a way back to Britain and refused. In fact, in her transmissions to London, she once said that she was having the time of her life and thanked them for giving her the opportunity to do this.

She was captured by the Gestapo, but never gave up; she made three attempts at escape. One involved asking to take a bath, insisting on being allowed to close the door to preserve her modesty, and then clambering onto the roof of the Gestapo HQ in Paris.

Her last word before being shot was, “Liberté!”

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2 Comments

Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, ethnicity, female empowerment, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, martyrdom, patriotism, unusual people, world events & processes, World War II

2 responses to “Noor Inayat Khan: An Indian Princess & British WW II Spy

  1. Maj Richard Hermon

    A Heroine withoiut any doubt !! RIP

  2. Maj Richard Hermon

    A Heroine without doubt .RIP !

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