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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

A Mark II receiver and transmitter, also known as the B2 Radio Set, of the type that Noor Inayat Khan and other SOE wireless operators were trained to operate during the war. Wikimedia

22. The Hazardous Job of a Clandestine Wireless Operator

Princess Noor Inayat Khan’s mission as a clandestine wireless operator in German-occupied France was extremely hazardous. 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 as they tapped out messages in code, and string up aerials disguised as clothes lines in attics. They then had to wait, sometimes for hours, for a reply, or at least an acknowledgment that their message had been received. As they did that, German signal vans were on constant patrol to try and pick up and triangulate the location of clandestine transmissions.

A wireless operator who stayed on the air for too long could lead the Germans straight to his or her location. So wireless operators like Noor had to constantly move around, and flit from transmission site to transmission site as inconspicuously as they could. That was no small feat. German military patrols, the Gestapo, and collaborationist French police frequently stopped and searched people, and back then, 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.

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.