Spies Who Paved the Way for Allied Victory in World War II

1. The Steep Price of Heroism

Noor Inayat Khan was flown to a clandestine airfield in German-occupied France. There, she was met by French SOE agent Henri Dericourt, who coordinated air operations between Britain and clandestine networks on the ground in France. Dericourt’s service with the SOE was controversial. After the war, he was accused of having been a double agent working for the Sicherheitdienst (SD), the intelligence arm of the Nazi SS, and of betraying SOE agents and French Resistance members to the Germans. He was tried on the charges, but was acquitted. Nonetheless, suspicions lingered and surrounded him to his dying day. They included suspicions of having betrayed Noor. Assistant Section Officer Noor Inayat Khan survived for longer than the average six weeks life expectancy of clandestine wireless operators in Nazi-occupied France. She arrived in mid-June, 1943, and lasted for nearly four months, before she was arrested by the SD on October 13^th, 1943.

Noor was betrayed to the Germans either by Henri Dericourt, or a female agent named Renee Garry, driven by jealousy because her love interest was attracted to Noor. Captured documents led the Germans to mount a counter-intelligence operation that nabbed three more SOE spies. Noor escaped imprisonment twice, but was recaptured. After the second attempt, she was classified as a “dangerous prisoner”, and was kept in solitary confinement, with her hands and feet in shackles. Despite harsh conditions and harsher interrogations, Noor refused to give the Nazis anything. After ten months of cruel confinement, she was sent to Dachau Concentration Camp, where she was brutally beaten by an SS officer, before she was shot to death on September 13^th, 1944. Her last words according to an inmate who witnessed her death were “Liberte“. After the war, she was posthumously awarded the British George Cross, and the French Croix de Guerre.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Association for Iranian Studies – Gevork Vartanian and Tehran 43: What Do We Know About the Legendary Soviet Spy?

Basu, Shrabani – Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan (2006)

BBC, January 11^th, 2012 – Soviet Spying Legend Gevork Vartanian Dies at 87

Daily Beast – The Allied Spies Who Paved the Way for D-Day

Foot, Michael Richard Daniell – SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940 – 1944 (2004)

Globe and Mail, August 11^th, 2005 – How a Valiant Spy Tricked His Captors

History Collection – Uncle Fester Was a WWII Aerial Commando, and Other Celebrities in Wartime

Imperial War Museums – Odette Sansom, GC

Independent, The, January 14^th, 2012 – Gevork Vartanian: Spy Who Helped Foil Churchill Death Plot

Jakub, Joseph F. – Spies and Saboteurs: Anglo-American Collaboration and Rivalry in Human Intelligence Collection and Special Operations, 1940-1945 (1996)

Legion, Canada’s Military History Magazine, June 8^th, 2017 – Hush-Hush Heroes

Les Fussiles – Clopet Evelyne, Claire

Loftis, Larry – Code Name Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Spy (2019)

Loftis, Larry – Into the Lion’s Den: The True Story of Dusko Popov, World War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real-Life Inspiration For James Bond (2016)

Macintyre, Ben – Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies (2012)

Popov, Dusko – Spy Counter-Spy (1974)

Russell, Miller – Codename Tricycle: The True Story of the Second World War’s Most Extraordinary Double Agent (2014)

Time Magazine, January 15^th, 2019 – The Extraordinary Bravery That Made This Woman One of World War II’s Most Remarkable Spies

Veterans Affairs Canada – Bill Chong Interview