In the decades since the end of World War II, scholars have researched and written about all aspects of the conflict. Early works were primarily operational in nature: they provided detailed descriptions of specific battles. If they delved into heroics performed on the battlefield, these scholars crafted narratives primarily centered around prominent military leaders or the lower ranks. These narratives focused on the contributions of men, not women; however, in recent decades, historians have worked hard to showcase the contributions of women—from the Rosie the Riveters, to the Land Army girls, to the “code girls,” to the women who fought alongside men in resistance movements or for intelligence organizations, such as the SOE (Special Operations Executive). Perhaps the least recognized group, because their work was secret and behind the scenes, was that of the women who, as couriers, wireless operators, saboteurs, and resistance network leaders, operated in occupied territory under constant threat of exposure, capture, torture, and death. Their stories have increasingly become better known in works by Lisa Mundy, Sarah Rose, Marc E. Vargo, Beryl E. Escott, and Judith L. Pearson.
Arthur J. Magida focuses on one woman who was betrayed, captured, tortured, and sent to Dachau concentration camp, where she was almost immediately executed and cremated. Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, the daughter of an internationally recognized Indian Sufi mystic and an American mother, was, according to Magida, an unlikely SOE recruit. Several books include a chapter about Noor, and she is the subject of several recent books, including Shrabani Basu's Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan (2008) and Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan (Madeleine): George Cross MBE, Croix de Guerre with Gold Star (2019) by Noor's friend Jean Overton Fuller. With his book, Magida adds to an understanding of who Noor was, what her contribution to SOE and French resistance was, and how her short life tragically ended.
Noor was born in Russia, where her family was living at the time, but the outbreak of World War I convinced the family to seek refuge in England. By 1919, the Khan family had relocated to France. They settled in a home called Fazal Manzil, located in a western suburb of Paris. Raised in Sufi Islam, which advocated an introspective quest for God, Noor was a musician, a folklorist, and a poet. The German invasion of France challenged Noor's core belief in non-violence. Noor and her family evacuated to England as the German threat loomed. After they reconciled a belief in non-violence and an obligation to fight against the Germans, Noor and her brother Vilayat found ways to contribute to the war effort. Noor eventually found her calling in the SOE, even though it meant blurring her strong belief that honesty was paramount.
Noor, like other SOE recruits, underwent extensive training in coding, decoding, wireless communication, and physical defense. While she passed the mechanics of her training, as Magida notes, those training her argued against Noor being deployed to France. They genuinely believed that she did not have the temperament for the type of dangerous work that would be required of her. She was too soft-spoken, nervous under pressure, and likely to crack under questioning if captured. Despite these negative reports, Maurice Buckmaster, the head of SOE's F Section, believed that Noor was just the type of operative needed, and approved her deployment to France as a wireless operator.
As Magida demonstrates, in many respects, Noor validated Buckmaster's confidence in her abilities. During a time when the average wireless operator only lasted six weeks in German-occupied France, Noor remained active for four months, and she did so by constantly relocating, particularly after she was compromised. While much of his assessment of Noor, her activities, and her contribution to the fight is glowing, Magida does not hesitate to highlight Noor's weaknesses or those of Buckmaster and his SOE colleagues in England. Noor committed two serious breaches of protocol. Despite instructions to the contrary, Noor failed to destroy copies of her communications—both coded and uncoded versions—and she interacted with numerous people with whom she had prewar connections. Although she was not the only SOE operative to violate these protocols, the former ultimately sealed her fate. When the Gestapo apprehended her in October 1943, they also acquired her radio and the entirety of her communications. Noor could not deny that she had engaged in what the Germans considered subversive activities.
Noor's capture had dire consequences for other SOE operatives. Because they had her radio and her codes, the Germans sent messages in which they requested money, supplies, and additional agents. Despite code master Leo Marks’ assertion that Noor was not the one sending the messages, which suggested that she had been captured, Buckmaster did not agree. As a result, the Germans reaped the benefit of acquiring everything, including the operatives, that SOE sent in response to Noor's requests.
Magida ultimately argues that Noor's SOE trainers got one part of their assessment completely wrong. Although she endured almost a year of captivity, during most of which she was in solitary confinement, Noor did not crack under interrogation. She did not reveal any secrets or personally compromise anyone, although a combination of the Germans sending communications in her name and Buckmaster's unwillingness to believe that Noor had been arrested did result in the capture of several SOE agents.
Magida's biography of Noor provides a case study that augments our understanding of the important contribution that the women of the SOE made during World War II. Those who were deployed to occupied Europe experienced the same dangers as their male counterparts, and some like Noor Inayat Khan paid the ultimate price for being willing to undertake dangerous work. Even though she broke protocols, Noor's activities, although at times misguided, as Magida demonstrates, underscore her commitment to the Allied cause. Code Name Madeleine: A Sufi Spy in Nazi-Occupied Paris is an interesting, engaging book that illustrates why interest in Noor continues seventy-seven years after her death.
