The Spy Princess

Amoonlit night in June 1943 saw two Lysander aeroplanes carry a group of SOE agents into occupied France. One of them was the 29-year old Indian princess Noor Inayat Khan. She was leaving the man she loved to help liberate the country she had grown up in.

SOE-circuits consisted of three persons, the organiser, who was the leader, the courier, who conveyed messages to contacts, and the radio operator, who communicated with headquarters. It was very dangerous to maintain the link to London; a radio operator was usually caught by the Nazis after only six weeks. Replacements were constantly in need and Noor was the first woman entrusted with this task.

Near the town Angers about 190 miles southwest of Paris the pilots saw three torches on the ground forming an inverted L. It was the signal for their place to land. A prearranged Morse code was flashed that told the pilots that friends waited on the ground. But was that really true? One of the men welcoming the plane, the Frenchman Henri Déricourt, was later found to have provided information to the Nazis. But for now, Déricourt inspired confidence