Noor Inayat Khan was the great-great-granddaughter of Tipu Sultan, the 18th-century ruler of Mysore. Raised in Paris and trained as a musician and children's author, she was a devoted follower of Sufism and committed pacifist. Yet when France fell, she joined the WAAF and then volunteered for SOE.
In June 1943, she was sent to Paris as a radio operator—the most dangerous role in occupied territory, as German direction-finding equipment could locate transmitters within 30 minutes. When her entire network was arrested within weeks of her arrival, SOE offered to extract her. She refused, becoming the sole Allied radio link in Paris for nearly four months.
Betrayed by a French woman for 100,000 francs, Noor was arrested in October 1943. She attempted to escape twice from prison. The Germans found her so dangerous that she was sent to Dachau, classified as "Nacht und Nebel" (Night and Fog—to disappear without a trace). On September 13, 1944, she was executed with three other SOE agents. Her last word, according to witnesses, was "Liberté." She was posthumously awarded the George Cross.