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The Hardcore Women of World War II Knew How to Take Care of Business

Khalid Elhassan October 19, 2020 32 min

World War II - Night Witches — Night Witches in front of a Po-2. Flite Test

31. Infiltrating Into Nazi-Occupied France in the Dead of Night

A Westland Lysander, used to infiltrate SOE agents such as Noor Inayat Khan into German-occupied Europe at night. Wikimedia

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. It flew her and two other women, also SOE agents, to a clandestine airfield in German-occupied France. There, they were 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 betraying SOE agents and French Resistance members to the Germans. He was tried on the charges, and was acquitted, but suspicions lingered and surrounded him to his dying day. They included suspicions of having betrayed Noor Inayat Khan.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.