The secret agent Noor Inayat Khan was the first female radio operator to be sent into occupied France during the Second World War as part of the Special Operations Executive. She was betrayed and captured by the Gestapo in 1943, enduring interrogation and solitary confinement but refusing to reveal any information. She was executed in 1944 alongside three other female SOE agents and posthumously awarded the George Cross and the French Croix de Guerre.
Noor was born in Moscow, but moved to Britain in 1914 just before the first world war. As a child she studied music at the Paris Conservatory and wrote a children's book, Twenty Jataka Tales, still on sale today. From 1942 to 1943 when she was sent to France this was at 4 Taviton Street just north of here, where you can find a blue plaque.
Noor enlisted in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force but her fluency in french soon led her to be recruited by the Special Operations Executive. Initially her instructors were skeptical, describing her as “clumsy”, and “not overburdened with brains”. Her commitment however was never questioned.
Following her arrival in France, there were mass arrests in the resistance groups she was a part of and Noor was given the option to return to Britan. She refused to abandon what had become a much more dangerous post in France, because she did not want to leave her French comrades, but after three months she was betrayed, and detained by the Gestapo.
Find the bust of Noor Inayat Khan in Gorden Square.
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