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A Spy in the Family...
David Harper’s aunt, Noor Inayat-Khan, an Allied WWII agent whose
code-name was ‘Madeleine’, was a most unlikely candidate for the mission she
eventually undertook. A musician, poet and writer of children’s stories, she
was the daughter of an Indian mystic from a princely family and an American
society girl.
First trained as
a radio operator by the Royal Air Force, then as a secret agent by the SOE, Noor
was secretly flown into German-occupied France to
act as a radio link between the SOE agents in France
and Allied HQs in England , in preparation for D-Day. As German counter-intelligence rounded
up all the agents in Noor’s circuit just before she was to report for duty in Paris , SOE HQs
ordered Noor to retreat back to Britain .
But she refused, saying that there was no one else to carry out the mission for
which she had been trained. Miraculously, Noor managed to escape detection and
for several months ensured the sole radio link between Paris and England .
Unfortunately
she was betrayed and captured by the Gestapo. Held prisoner at German security
HQs in Paris for some time, Noor made two attempts to escape. This led to her transfer
to a German prison where she suffered solitary confinement for close to a year.
On Hitler’s orders, secret agents who had worked for Allied secret services
should be made to disappear under the ‘Nacht und Nebel’ (night and fog) plan.
Thus Noor was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp where she was stripped naked, brutally beaten
and shot in the back of the neck.
David assisted
in the making of ‘Princess Spy’, a one-hour BBC documentary on Madeleine that
appeared on ‘Timewatch’ in 2006. Several books have been written about her or
include her unusual story:
A Life in
Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE by Sarah Helm
Madeleine by
Jean Overton Fuller
Spy Princess:
The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani
Basu
The Women who
Lived for Danger: Behind Enemy Lines During WWII by Marcus Binney
Between Silk and
Cyanide by Leo Marks
The German
Penetration of SOE by Jean Overton Fuller
Noor is also
featured in several books by M.R.D. Foot (official SOE historian)
The Tiger’s Claw
(a novel based on Noor's life) by Shauna Singh Baldwin
All that I Have
(a novel based on Noor’s life) by Laurent
Joffrin
A Man Called
Intrepid (a novel and big screen film featuring Noor’s life) by William Stephenson
