Person    | Female  Born 2/1/1914  Died 13/9/1944

Noor Inayat Khan

Categories: Espionage

Countries: France, Russia

War dead, WW2 i

Commemorated on a memorial as having died in WW2.

WW2 spy and member of the French resistance. A descendant of the 18th century south Indian ruler Tipu Sultan, Khan was a follower of the Sufi faith and believed in non-violence.

Born Moscow to parents of Indian heritage. Just before the start of WW1 the family moved to London, Bloomsbury, and in 1920 they moved to France. She took on responsibility for the family and in 1940 they escaped back to England. A fluent French speaker with a strong aversion to fascism she joined the Special Operations Executive and infiltrated into France with a false identity. She worked there for the French resistance but was betrayed. Captured by the Nazis she was tortured and killed in Dachau concentration camp in Germany. The British posthumously awarded her the George Cross, France the Croix de Guerre, their highest civilian honour. She is the only Indian woman to have received the George Cross.

The first woman of south Asian descent to get a blue plaque in London.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Noor Inayat Khan

Commemorated ati

Memorial Gates

Designed by Liam O'Connor as a reduced-scale version of Lutyens' monument at ...

Read More

Noor Inayat Khan bust

The Guardian reports: "the first stand-alone memorial to an Asian woman in th...

Read More

Noor Inayat Khan - Taviton Street

Noor Inayat Khan, GC, 1914 - 1944, SOE agent, codename 'Madeleine', stayed he...

Read More

Women's Transport Service (FANY)

We like the bespoke layout of this plaque: the medals, the maiden-name, the "...

Read More

Other Subjects

Special Operations Executive (SOE)

Special Operations Executive (SOE)

Spies, basically (but see below), working for the UK in WW2. Formed by Churchill and variously known as "Churchill's Secret Army", "The Baker Street Irregulars", the Pythonesque "Ministry of Ungent...

Group, Armed Forces, Espionage, France, Germany

10 memorials
Graham Greene

Graham Greene

Author. Born Henry Graham Greene at St John's, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. After his marriage, he converted to Roman Catholicism, which became a theme in a number of his novels. During the second w...

Person, Espionage, Literature, Switzerland

2 memorials
Sir John Vanbrugh

Sir John Vanbrugh

Playwright and architect. Born in the parish of St Nicholas Acons, London, of Flemish descent. Worked in the English Baroque style, sometimes with Hawksmoor, on Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace. L...

Person, Architecture, Espionage, Theatre

6 memorials
Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe

Playwright and poet, for definite. Spy? Atheist? Homosexual? Shakespeare? Baptized on 26th February at St George's Church, Canterbury. Educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His plays inclu...

Person, Espionage, Poetry, Theatre

3 memorials
Ensign Denise Madeleine Bloch, Légion d'honneur, Croix de Guerre

Ensign Denise Madeleine Bloch, Légion d'honneur, Croix de Guerre

Denise Madeleine Bloch was born on 21 January 1916 in Paris, France to a Jewish family. Her father was Jacques Henri Bloch and her mother was Suzanne Levi-Strauss. She had three brothers. Her Wiki...

Person, Armed Forces, Espionage, Execution, France, Germany

War dead, WW2
1 memorial