Noor Inayat Khan

The Indian princess who became a British spy 1914-44

There were few people less likely to become a British spy. Noor Inayat Khan was an honest-to-god Indian princess, a klutzy children’s book author and a Sufi Muslim mystic – which meant she was a strict pacifist who couldn’t lie. But when the Nazis took Paris, she gave everything up and joined the war effort as a spy. Assigned to be a radio operator in occupied Paris, she was thought of as basically cannon fodder: the average lifespan for that job was six weeks and her instructors doubted she’d even last that. Making things worse, the entire Parisian operation was arrested on her second day in Paris – leaving her alone. But she refused offers of extradition and proceeded to crush it at her job. Changing routes, appearances and everything about herself, she lasted five months before being betrayed and arrested. She went down kicking, punching and screaming, despite being a lifelong pacifist. She lied under torture, despite being a Sufi mystic, forbidden to lie. She nimbly ran across roofs in escape attempts, despite being a klutz. She gave the Nazis absolutely nothing. She died before a firing squad weeks before her concentration camp was liberated. Reportedly her last word, shouted at her executors, was “Liberté”. She was 30 years old.