Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Noor Inayat Khan
    Noor Inayat Khan
    Noor Inayat Khan
    Ebook84 pages1 hour

    Noor Inayat Khan

    By Gaby Halberstam

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Noor Khan was a pacifist, an Indian Muslim, a poet and children's author. During WWII she joined the Special Operations Executive and was sent to Nazi-occipied France as a wireless operator, transmitting vital secret messages. When her network was broken and her colleagues captured by the Nazis, she refused to abandon what had become the most important and dangerous post in France, as the last link between London and Paris. She was executed in Dachau in 1944 after being betrayed to the Nazis, and was posthumously awarded the George Cross and Croix de Guerre.

    The astonishing story of a true British hero.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateNov 7, 2013
    ISBN9781472900142
    Noor Inayat Khan
    Author

    Gaby Halberstam

    Born and raised in the sleepy town of Port Elizabeth in South Africa, Gaby Halberstam's passion for writing began at the age of five when she started penning stories for her family and friends. After studying English as an adult, she went on to become a qualified lawyer, a career choice she immediately regretted knowing that she'd be much happier as a professional writer. Now based in London with her husband and three children, Gaby has achieved her childhood dream and is a full time author.

    Related to Noor Inayat Khan

    Related ebooks

    Children's Historical For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Spy Princess

      Aug 15, 2019

      The Spy Princess
      7 min read

    • Article

      War On Sexism

      Feb 8, 2019

      War On Sexism
      7 min read

    • Article

      Life Of Indian Princess Who Fought Nazis To Be Told In TV Series

      Jan 14, 2021

      The story of the daughter of an Indian Sufi mystic, who was killed while a British secret agent fighting with the French resistance in the second world war, is to be told in a TV drama series. Noor Inayat Khan, who was captured by the Gestapo and exe

      2 min read

    • Article

      Invest

      Apr 8, 2021

      Invest
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019

      Nov 23, 2019

      The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Bully In The Ballad

      Dec 1, 2022

      The Bully In The Ballad
      8 min read

    • Article

      Kate moss

      Jan 18, 2024

      Kate moss
      5 min read

    • Article

      Uncovering Australia’s First Serial Murderer

      Feb 24, 2020

      The woman’s body was found by a local teenager, in a bed of brambles in a quiet, overgrown part of Sydney’s Queens Park. A small, slight woman named Iris Marriott had been bludgeoned to death by her attacker. Five months earlier, in July 1932, anoth

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Education of Bill Oliver

      Aug 28, 2018

      The Education of Bill Oliver
      16 min read

    • Article

      Act of Service

      Apr 25, 2023

      Act of Service
      3 min read

    • Article

      Dana Thomas

      Feb 17, 2020

      What should you wear? We’ve all wondered it at one time or another – typically as the seconds slip away and you need to get out the door for a big day at work, or when an invite leaves you standing in front of your wardrobe wishing a perfect new outf

      2 min read

    • Article

      I’ll Have What He’s Having

      Feb 26, 2023

      I’ll Have What He’s Having
      10 min read

    • Article

      Reasons To Be Cheerful

      Aug 10, 2021

      The leftwing leadership of the city of Marseilles has bought up a branch of McDonald’s and given it a longer-term future as a community resource. In December 2019, the franchise owners announced that the restaurant would be sold. Workers suspected th

      1 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Noor Inayat Khan

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Noor Inayat Khan - Gaby Halberstam

      For Simon

      Contents

      Prologue: 13 September 1944

      1 16 June 1943

      2 17 June 1943

      3 June 1943

      4 June 1943

      5 26 June 1943

      6 27 June 1943

      7 July 1943

      8 July 1943

      9 July 1943

      10 July 1943

      11 July 1943

      12 August 1943

      13 September 1943

      14 October 1943

      15 October 1943

      16 October 1943

      17 13 October 1943

      18 November 1943

      19 November 1943 to September 1944

      20 12 September 1944

      21 13 September 1944

      Epilogue

      Also Available...

      Prologue

      13 September 1944

      The icy fingers of dawn touched the bars of the prison cell, before feeling their way to the body of the young woman slumped across the cement floor. In the grey light, the blood in which she lay shone dully. From outside there came the sounds of shouting, the smart rhythm of hard heels on hard surfaces, and moaning. But inside the cell, the woman said nothing. The Nazi officer standing over her dealt her another kick, half-hearted this time. As though she were no longer worth the effort. Wiping his brow on his sleeve, he took his pistol from its holster.

      ‘Kneel!’ he ordered in his coarse French accent, shoving her feet with his boot.

      1

      16 June 1943

      The pilot shut the plane, climbed into the cockpit, and they were off. Noor Inayat Khan waved to Miss Atkins through the window. She’d been overseeing Noor almost like a head mistress, and it was she who’d brought Noor to Sussex to catch the plane to France, and the beginning of her adventure.

      The English Channel glittered in the moonlight like a sequinned scarf. In the time it took to fly from England to the airfield near Paris, Noor had to take on her new identity. She reached for the documents inside her bag. The photograph on her new ID card was definitely of her: brown eyes, heart-shaped face and darkish skin, brown-black hair cut in the latest Parisian style. But the name on the card was Jeanne-Marie Renier, a children’s nurse. She’d been given a new birthday, too. Noor smiled: when the plane had taken off, she’d been twenty-nine, but when it landed she’d be twenty-five. Jeanne Marie was her new official name, but her code name was Madeleine.

      The other things in her bag were more frightening. Miss Atkins had given her a Webley pistol. It was cold to the touch. She’d have to use it if the plane were met by the enemy. The thought of that was enough to make Noor shudder.

      Next to the pistol, in a little envelope, were the four special pills to be swallowed if she were in trouble. The first would keep Noor awake if she needed to keep going. If she were captured, she could swallow the second pill and it would make her seem ill. The third could be put into the enemy’s drink to make him sleep for six hours. That would give Noor a chance to escape. The fourth pill was the one she could use if she was absolutely desperate: the L pill. It contained cyanide, which was deadly. If she bit through the rubber coating and swallowed the poison inside, she would die within minutes.

      Quickly, Noor closed her bag, and looked out of the window again. This was the start of her mission – a secret mission. She was a member of SOE, the Special Operations Executive. Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, had set it up. ‘Set Europe ablaze’, he’d said, and that was what she and the other SOE agents were going to do.

      They were going to work with the Resistance, the men and women working in secret to disrupt and destroy the Germans.

      Did Churchill know about her? she wondered. The thought made her sit up straight. Not even Amma, her mother, nor her sister and two brothers knew where she was and what she was doing.

      ‘We’re nearly there,’ the pilot said, his crackly voice breaking into her thoughts. ‘Another ten minutes or so.’

      She fluttered her fingers across her lap. She used to play the harp when she was younger; now she was known as a pianist. But that didn’t mean that she played the piano. No, she was a wireless telegraph operator, someone who typed out messages in code on a radio set – the first female operator to be flown into France.

      She would receive messages from London about agents coming to France, or when and where guns and ammunition would be dropped. When London planned acts of sabotage, it would be her job to pass the details on to the Resistance, and to report back on whether the agents had been successful, or whether anyone had been captured by the Germans.

      Through the window Noor could see the lights marking the landing strip for the plane. There was a rattling and banging as they landed. Moving quickly, the pilot opened the door, and Noor scrambled down the ladder he lowered.

      ‘Madeleine?’ someone on

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1