Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan (2006) is the biography of the female Indian spy who worked for the British secret service during World War II.
Noor Inayat Khan was born in Moscow, lived in Paris, evacuated to England in 1940 at the onset of the Second World War, returned to France, and was captured by the Germans. This is her inspirational, yet tragic, story.
Noor Inayat Khan was a quiet, unassuming woman of the world – with royal Indian heritage. Her father was Indian and her mother was American, but Noor Inayat Khan (1914-1944) was raised in Paris from 1921 at the age of seven. Her father died when she was thirteen, and her mother was frail, so she looked after her three siblings, writing poetry and composing children’s stories for them, complete with illustrations.
In 1938 she gained her degree in child psychology, but war was approaching, and she fled France for England in June 1940 to join the war effort, volunteering with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. She was trained as a radio operator, changing her name to Nora Baker. In 1942, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was watching her progress, and had a job for her – as a British secret agent – a spy.
She passed the tests easily, as the recruiter remembers: ‘the small, still features, the dark quiet eyes, the soft voice, and the fine spirit glowing in her.’ She knew the dangerous implications of her assignment and accepted ‘with calmness.’ She was ready to return to occupied France.
The chapters of her life in occupied France are interesting, detailing her routines and required tasks. She ‘managed to facilitate the escape of thirty Allied airmen shot down in France and ensured that arms and money were delivered to the French Resistance. She also pinpointed positions for parachute drops of arms and arranged for other agents to escape back to England.’
She had her real name, her British name, her cover name, and her code names. But there were British officials who questioned her readiness, her discretion, and for being quietly charismatic, ‘too conspicuous – twice seen, never forgotten.’
But danger was indeed just around the corner. These are suspenseful chapters as she eludes the Gestapo. British male radio operators in Paris were captured: Norman, Agazarian, Dowlen, Macalister, Dubois and Cohen – leaving Noor the only operator in Paris: ‘though she had been warned … to lie low, she started transmitting cautiously. Single-handedly she did the work of six radio operators.’
When she too was captured, she thinks of ways to escape. Ten months held in captivity by the Gestapo, her father’s Sufi philosophy helped her to brave the torture, until she was taken to Dachau concentration camp where she was shot to death, shouting 'Liberte'– freedom – on 13 September 1944 at the age of thirty.
Only three women SOE have ever been awarded the highest civilian medal, the George Cross: Violette Szabo, Odette Sansom, and Noor Inayat Khan. Better known in France than elsewhere, she is a French national heroine – the Madeleine of the Resistance.
This is an extraordinary story of service and courage, but it also questions her preparedness. At a time when urgency was essential in the war effort, was her recruitment rushed? Were her disguises effective? But she was betrayed – by whom? Or did she inadvertently betray herself? Was her security compromised? Why did it take so long before the British intelligence realized that she had been captured? There are some answers and plenty of speculation in this fascinating biography.
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MARTINA NICOLLS
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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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