On This Day in History: September 13

Noor Khan the princess spy

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Her name was Noor Inayat Khan, and she was a princess. Descended from renowned 18th-century Indian ruler Tipu Sultan, she was also a spy for the Allies during World War II. A wireless radio operator behind enemy lines in France sending critical information back to London, she was betrayed to the Gestapo then tortured and murdered by Nazis in the Dachau concentration camp.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: September 13, 1944--

Living in France at the outbreak of the war, her family fled to England. Although a pacifist, she was all “Fuck those Nazi fucks” and joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and was trained as a wireless operator. Her trainers considered her unfit both physically and mentally for the work of a spy, but her ability operating the wireless equipment and fluency in French made up for it. The evaluation of her toughness would prove to be an error. In 1943 she would be the first woman sent to the mainland to serve as a wireless operator in enemy territory, sending and receiving information about sabotage operations, weapons drops for resistance fighters, and helping airmen who had been shot down to escape.

She was flown into France and became “Madeleine.” The job was especially dangerous because those Nazi fucks could pick up the transmissions and find their location. After each transmission the operator had to change locations, which meant carrying the bulky wireless equipment from site to site. If they were stopped and searched, the radio was a dead giveaway, and the carrier was doomed.

The life expectancy of a wireless operator in 1943 France was six weeks.

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Within a week of Khan’s arrival all the operators in her network were captured and sent off to a very bad place. London wanted to pull her out, but she refused because she knew she was the only link between Paris and London. By herself, she did the work of six operators for three months. One night, while stringing an antenna to a tree to make a transmission, she was questioned by a German officer. She charmed him by saying she wanted to listen to the radio. He then helped her hang the antenna.

She was captured in October 1943 after being betrayed, possibly by a double agent. She twice attempted escape, almost being successful the second time. She was tortured for information over several months, but after the war the head of the Gestapo in Paris testified Khan never gave a single piece of information. After 11 months as a prisoner, on September 13, 1944 (a month after Paris was liberated), Khan was executed at the Dachau concentration camp by a gunshot to the head.

The final word she spoke was Liberté.

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