Noor Inayat Khan (1914-1944)

DOSSIER:

Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Ameena Begum, was born on 2 Jan 1914 in Moscow, Russia. She was executed at the Dachau concentration camp on 13 Sep 1944.

CODE NAMES:Nora Baker
Madeleine
Jeanne-Marie Rennier

After the outbreak of the Second World War, when France was overrun by German troops, Noor's family fled to Bordeaux and, from there by sea, to England, landing in Falmouth, Cornwall on 22 Jun 1940.

Although Noor was deeply influenced by the pacifist teachings of her father, she and her brother Vilayat decided to help defeat Nazi tyranny: "I wish some Indians would win high military distinction in this war. If one or two could do something in the Allied service which was very brave and which everybody admired it would help to make a bridge between the English people and the Indians."

On 19 Nov 1940, she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and, as an Aircraftwoman 2nd Class, was sent to be trained as a wireless operator. Upon assignment to a bomber training school in June 1941, she applied for a commission in an effort to relieve herself of the boring work there, subsequently being promoted Assistant Section Officer.

Later, Noor was recruited to join F (France) Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and in early February 1943 she was posted to the Air Ministry, Directorate of Air Intelligence, seconded to First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), sent to Wanborough Manor, near Guildford in Surrey, and from there to various other SOE schools for training, including STS 5 Winterfold House, STS 36 Boarmans and STS 52 Thame Park. During her training she adopted the name "Nora Baker".

Her superiors held mixed opinions on her suitability for secret warfare, and her training was incomplete. Nevertheless, her fluent French and her competency in wireless operation—coupled with a shortage of experienced agents—made her a desirable candidate for service in Nazi-occupied France. On 16/17 June 1943, cryptonymed 'Madeleine'/W/T operator 'Nurse' and under the cover identity of Jeanne-Marie Regnier, Assistant Section Officer/Ensign Inayat Khan was flown to landing ground B/20A 'Indigestion' in Northern France on a night landing double Lysander operation, code named Teacher/Nurse/Chaplain/Monk. She was met by Henri Déricourt.

She travelled to Paris, and with two other women, Diana Rowden and Cecily Lefort, joined the Physician network led by Francis Suttill. 

Over the next month and a half, all the other Physician network radio operators were arrested by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), along with hundreds of Resistance personnel associated with Prosper. Colonel Maurice Buckmaster, head of F Section, later claimed that in spite of the danger, Noor rejected an offer to return to Britain, although it was certainly in SOE's interest that she stay in the field in the aftermath of the round-up of their largest network. As the only remaining wireless operator still at large in Paris, Noor continued to transmit to London messages from agents of what remained of the Prosper/Physician circuit, a network she also worked to keep intact despite the mass arrests of its members. 

She was now the most wanted British agent in Paris with SD officers sent out to look for her at subway stations, and an accurate description of her widely circulated among German security officers. With wireless detection vans in close pursuit, Noor could only transmit for twenty minutes at one time in one place, but constantly moving from place to place, she managed to escape capture while maintaining wireless communication with London: "She refused to abandon what had become the most important and dangerous post in France and did excellent work."

Noor was betrayed to the Germans, either by Henri Déricourt or by Renée Garry. Déricourt was an SOE officer and former French Air Force pilot who had been suspected of working as a double agent for the Sicherheitsdienst. Garry was the sister of Émile Garry, Noor's organizer in the Cinema network. Allegedly paid 100,000 francs, Renée Garry's actions have been attributed by some to jealousy due to Garry's suspicion that she had lost the affections of SOE agent France Antelme to Noor.

On or around 13 Oct 1943, Noor was arrested and interrogated at the SD Headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch in Paris. Though SOE trainers had expressed doubts about her gentle and unworldly character, on her arrest she fought so fiercely that SD officers were afraid of her. She was thenceforth treated as an extremely dangerous prisoner. There is no evidence of her being tortured, but her interrogation lasted over a month. During that time, she attempted escape twice. Hans Kieffer, the former head of the SD in Paris, testified after the war that she did not give the Gestapo a single piece of information, but lied consistently.

Although Noor did not talk about her activities under interrogation, the SD found her notebooks. Contrary to security regulations, she had copied out all the messages she had sent as an SOE operative (this may have been due to her misunderstanding what a reference to filing meant in her orders, and also the truncated nature of her security course due to the need to insert her into France as soon as possible). Although she refused to reveal any secret codes, the Germans gained enough information from them to continue sending false messages imitating her. London failed to properly investigate anomalies which should have indicated the transmissions were sent under enemy control. What in particular should have been noticed was the change in the 'fist', that is the style of the operator's Morse transmission, because Noor's was noticeably heavy. Indeed, as a WAAF signaller, Noor had been nicknamed 'Bang Away Lulu' because of her distinctively heavy-handed style, which was said to be a result of chilblains.

And so, as a result of London's errors, three more agents sent to France were captured by the Germans at their parachute landing, among them Madeleine Damerment, who was later executed. Sonia Olschanesky, a locally recruited SOE agent had learnt of Noor's arrest, and had sent a message to London through her fiance, Jacques Weil, telling Baker Street of her capture and warning HQ to suspect any transmissions from 'Madelaine'. Unfortunately, Colonel Maurice Buckmaster ignored the message as unreliable because he did not know who Sonia was. As a result, German transmissions from Noor's radio continued to be treated as genuine, leading to the unnecessary deaths of SOE agents, including Sonia herself, who was executed at Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp on 6 July 1944. When Vera Atkins investigated the deaths of missing SOE agents, she initially confused Noor with Sonia (they were similar in appearance), who was unknown to her, believing that Noor had been killed at Natzweiler, only correcting the record when she discovered Noor's fate at Dachau.

On 25 Nov 1943, Noor escaped from the SD Headquarters, along with fellow SOE Agents John Renshaw Starr and Leon Faye, but was captured in the vicinity. There was an air raid alert as they escaped across the roof. Regulations required a count of prisoners at such times and their escape was discovered before they could get away. After refusing to sign a declaration renouncing future escape attempts, Noor was taken to Germany on 27 Nov 1943 "for safe custody" and imprisoned at Pforzheim in solitary confinement as a "Nacht und Nebel" ("Night and Fog": condemned to "Disappearance without Trace") prisoner, in complete secrecy. She was classified as "highly dangerous" and shackled at hands and feet for ten months.

As the prison director testified after the war, Noor remained uncooperative and continued to refuse to give any information on her work or her fellow operatives, although in her despair at the appalling nature of her confinement, other prisoners could hear her crying at night. However, by the ingenious method of scratching messages on the base of her mess cup, she was able to inform another inmate of her identity, giving the name of Nora Baker and the London address of her mother's house.

On 11 Sep 1944, Noor and three other SOE agents from Karlsruhe prison, Yolande Beekman, Eliane Plewman and Madeleine Damerment, were moved to the Dachau concentration camp. In the early hours of the morning of 13 Sep 1944, the four women were executed by a shot to the back of the head. Their bodies were immediately burned in the crematorium. An anonymous Dutch prisoner emerging in 1958 contended that Noor was cruelly beaten by a high-ranking SS officer named Wilhelm Ruppert before being shot from behind, which may have been the actual cause of her death. She may also have been sexually assaulted while in custody. Her last word has been recorded as, 'liberté'.