2. The First Female SOE Wireless Operator in Nazi-Occupied France
Having grown up in France and being fluent in French, Noor Inayat Khan was a catch for British intelligence. She was recruited by the French section of the SOE, and in early 1943, was sent to receive special training as a wireless operator behind enemy lines. Other SOE female agents had been sent to France before Noor. However, the Muslim princess was the first SOE woman infiltrated into France as a wireless operator – the other women sent before her had all been couriers. Noor’s job was to maintain a link between the Resistance in France, and the Allies in London, sending and receiving messages to coordinate activities. Her mission as a clandestine wireless operator in Nazi-occupied France was extremely dangerous. It grew ever more dangerous as the war progressed and the Germans’ ability to detect transmissions rapidly improved. Clandestine wireless operators had to hide as best they could.
They strung up aerials disguised as clothes drying lines in attics, and tapped out messages in Morse code. The operators then had to wait, sometimes for hours, for a reply, or at least an acknowledgment that their message had been received. German signal vans constantly patrolled, hoping to pick up and triangulate clandestine transmission locations. Staying on air for too long risked leading the Germans straight to the wireless operator. So operators had to constantly relocate, as inconspicuously as they could – no small feat back in the days when transmitters were bulky contraptions that filled a suitcase. In 1943, when Noor accepted her assignment, the life expectancy of a clandestine wireless operator in Nazi territory was just six weeks. On the night of June 16-17, 1943, Assistant Section Officer Noor Inayat Khan, codenamed Madeline and using the fake identity Jeanne-Marie Regnier, boarded a black-painted Westland Lysander. Her destination: Nazi-occupied France.
