However, the Gestapo had already infiltrated Prosper, and not long after Noor\u2019s arrival the network collapsed. Despite London urging her to return home, Khan remained in enemy territory, determined to keep communicating with Britain \u2013 but the Gestapo were closing in. The Nazis finally captured her in October 1943, and managed to impersonate her to trick SOE into sending further waves of agents into their traps.<\/p>\n
After her arrest, Noor was imprisoned for almost a year in increasingly squalid conditions, until she was sent to Dachau concentration camp in September 1944 and executed.<\/p>\n
Was Noor Inayat Khan a princess?<\/h2>\n
Khan was born on 1 January 1914 in Moscow, and was descended from Indian royalty.<\/p>\n
Her father \u2013 a Sufi teacher called Hazrat Inayat Khan \u2013 was related to Tipu Sultan, the famed 17th-century ruler of Mysore in southern India.<\/p>\n
Khan\u2019s mother, Ora Ray Baker (who changed her name to Amina Begum after marriage), was an American poet.<\/p>\n
\u201cKhan had a pretty idyllic childhood,\u201d says historian Kate Vigurs, who was speaking to us about Noor Inayat Khan for our Life of the Week<\/em> podcast series<\/a>. \u201cShe had a very loving family, and was surrounded by philosophy, music and religious teachings\u201d.<\/p>\n During Khan\u2019s formative years the family lived in London, but then they relocated to France in 1920.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe things were a little difficult to Khan at first, because she and her family only spoke English, but she was a very intelligent child and quickly picked up the language,\u201d says Vigurs.<\/p>\n However, Khan\u2019s idyllic childhood was fractured in 1927 when her father tragically died.<\/p>\n \u201cA few months after his death, she went to visit the family home in India \u2013 this is the only time we\u2019re aware of that she travelled there \u2013 and she became very taken with the place.\u201d<\/p>\n Khan also sought solace in writing. She was a talented author, first penning poems and later publishing children\u2019s stories. But when the Second World War broke out, her life was upturned once again.<\/p>\n When France fell to the Nazis in 1940, Khan and her family decided to flee to Britain.<\/p>\n But as war engulfed Europe, Khan was desperate to help those suffering, and she and her sister started training as Red Cross nurses.<\/p>\n According to Vigurs, this decision was typical of Khan: \u201cShe always wanted to help people. She always wanted to do the best that she could.\u201d<\/p>\n However, rather than continue with her nursing, Khan changed course and followed her brother into the armed forces.<\/p>\n He initially wanted to enlist in the RAF, but poor eyesight meant he could not, so he joined the navy Khan signed up with the Women\u2019s Auxiliary Air Force<\/a> instead and trained as a wireless operator, learning to quickly send and receive messages in Morse code.<\/p>\n This new direction deeper into warfare was directly at odds with Khan\u2019s deeply held principles of pacifism. \u201cShe was a pacifist, having been brought up in a very peaceful and caring environment,\u201d says Vigurs. \u201cThere must have been some conflict in her head about what she was going to do during the war, to be able to contribute.\u201d<\/p>\n Vigurs reasons: \u201cBeing a wireless operator wasn\u2019t an active role \u2013 she wasn\u2019t bearing arms, and was instead acting in a support capacity. Perhaps she felt like she wanted to contribute in a way that was a little more practical .\u201d<\/p>\n Khan\u2019s skill as a wireless operator eventually brought her to the attention of SOE.<\/p>\n This intelligence organisation was founded in 1940, and existed to \u201cassist and coordinate local clandestine activity against the occupying Nazis\u201d.<\/p>\n To help support resistance groups across Europe and beyond, the SOE needed to recruit men and women with a range of skills, from wireless operators to weapons experts.<\/p>\n Khan was recruited after just one interview, and then began her training so she would be able to survive while on assignment.<\/p>\n As well as honing her Morse code skills, she was also taught how to handle weapons, survival skills and security measures for keeping codes secret.<\/p>\n But some of Khan\u2019s tutors \u2013 and even her fellow students \u2013 worried that she wasn\u2019t up to the job.<\/p>\n Vigurs explains: \u201cHer training reports were extremely poor. They described her as \u2018dreamy\u2019 and said she\u2019s \u2018not overburdened with brains\u2019\u201d \u2013 assessments that the head of SOE France, Maurice Buckmaster, vehemently disagreed with.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it was even worse than that. Some of her fellow trainees wrote a letter to Buckmaster saying that they didn\u2019t think she was suitable for work in the field. Her wireless skills were superb, but her personality and the lack of security demonstrated on the training course were a real cause for concern.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite these objections, Khan remained committed to being an SOE agent \u2013 and the Parisian SOE networks desperately needed a wireless operator of her calibre to help them. Against the advice of some instructors and trainee agents, she was sent into the field in the summer of 1943.<\/p>\n On the night of 16 June 1943, Noor boarded a Lysander (a small landing aircraft) heading for France. In the early hours of the morning she arrived in the Loire Valley and made her way to Paris, clasping a suitcase with her wireless set hidden inside, and with a cover identity as a nurse that would hopefully save her from the Nazis.<\/p>\n She started working for the Prosper network almost immediately. Her job was to communicate with SOE back in Britain, to coordinate the arrival of agents and weaponry to aid the Resistance.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people refer to these wireless operators as spies,\u201d says Vigurs. \u201cThey weren\u2019t strictly intelligence gatherers, although they did dabble, so I prefer to use the term \u2018secret agent\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Khan\u2019s job was an incredibly dangerous one.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing a wireless operator was the most dangerous job for any SOE agent,\u201d Vigurs explains. \u201cTo start with, the wireless sets were hidden inside suitcases, so you would be literally carrying the tools of your trade that would give you away in an instant.<\/p>\n \u201cOperators were given a life expectancy of six weeks, and a survival rate of 50-50.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortly after Khan arrived in Paris, the Prosper network began to collapse. The Gestapo had managed to infiltrate the group, and \u201conce one arrest happened, it was like a house of cards\u201d.<\/p>\n Although Prosper had essentially disbanded, with its agents either arrested or in hiding, Khan was determined to stay and help.<\/p>\n \u201cShe maintained wireless contact, and this was the most important thing\u201d, says Vigurs. It is noted that she was the sole wireless contact out of Paris at this incredibly important time. \u201cShe\u2019s held up for her bravery, for staying in Paris when nobody else was there.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gestapo were desperate to catch her. Khan managed to evade them throughout the summer, though there were several near misses.<\/p>\n For instance, Vigurs shares that \u201cshe dyed her hair blonde, which sent goosebumps down everybody\u2019s spine as it made her really recognisable.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Khan quickly dyed it brown again to be less conspicuous, Vigurs says one error in this period proved insurmountable: \u201cThe most critical thing she did was keep a record of all her messages. She kept them in code, and she kept them in clear [as the decoded messages were known]. She used to carry them in her bag, and when her friend urged her to stop, she left them on the kitchen table instead \u2013 she never got rid of those messages. She should have burnt them.\u201d<\/p>\n HistoryExtra<\/em> members can explore this topic further with exclusive content from our archives<\/strong><\/p>\nNoor Inayat Khan and pacifism<\/h2>\n
How did Noor Inayat Khan become a secret agent?<\/h2>\n
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Was Noor Inayat Khan a WW2 spy?<\/h2>\n
How did Noor Inayat Khan get caught?<\/h2>\n
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