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The War That Lasted 38 Minutes and Other Fascinating Warfare History

Khalid Elhassan November 18, 2021 35 min

Destroyed Ottoman equipment and carriages after the 1918 Battle of Megiddo. Imperial War Museums

23. The First Female SOE Wireless Operator in Nazi-Occupied France

British intelligence caught wind of Noor Inayat Khan’s requests for a more challenging assignment, and they were more than happy to oblige her. She had grown up in France and was fluent in French. That made her quite a catch for the British, who faced a severe shortage of French speakers. So she was recruited by the French section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), and in early 1943, was sent to train as a clandestine wireless operator behind enemy lines.

The fact that she had been previously trained as a wireless operator gave her an edge and head start over other trainees. Noor was not the first SOE woman sent to France. However, the Muslim princess was the first SOE woman who was infiltrated into France as a wireless operator – the other women sent before she had all been couriers. Noor’s job was to maintain a link between the Resistance in France and the Allies in London and send and receive messages to coordinate activities.

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.