When Henriette exclaimed that if she was discovered she would be shot, Noor simply said she knew. She said her predecessor had been shot by the Germans and she had volunteered to come when London needed a person with language skills to do the job. Noor left quickly after that and it was the last time her teacher saw her.
Noor now moved around with her radio set most of the time. She desperately needed to find different houses, preferably with trees outside where she could hang up the aerial, in order to transmit. So far she had transmitted mainly from country roads with Arrighi and Vaudevire and occasionally from Julienne’s flat. She also dyed her hair in an attempt to disguise herself. The Germans had put out her description at all stations. They were also trying to detect her transmissions. The wireless detection stations often caught her on the airwaves but they could not close in on her as she constantly changed the place of transmission.10
One day, probably around the end of August, Noor was spotted cycling up the Champs Elysées by Madame Salmon, one of her neighbours from Fazal Manzil.11 Madame Salmon called out, ‘Noor!’ Startled at hearing her real name shouted out loud, Noor stopped and quickly led the other woman into a side street. She told Madame Salmon the reason why she was in Paris and said she was known here as Jeanne-Marie and no one knew her real name.
Noor was wearing dark glasses and had dyed her hair red, which made her look very different and somewhat odd. She was wearing a simple summer frock. Noor was hoping to throw the Germans off her track in case they were looking for a lady with dark hair. Madame Salmon, who had known her for a long time, still managed to recognise her despite the disguise.
They agreed to keep in touch by meeting in cafés. By now Noor had clearly become much more security conscious and they did not exchange addresses. They arranged to meet again at a café and decide at each meeting a rendezvous for the next. The next time they met Noor had dyed her hair blonde, which Madame Salmon thought suited her much more than the red hair.12
Still on the lookout for a room to broadcast from, Noor paid a visit to her old family doctor, Dr Jourdan, and his wife.13 The Inayat Khans’ family physician had always been very fond of little Noor, whom he had operated on for an inflamed appendix as a child. On being cured, she had presented the Jourdans with a small potted rose tree. They had planted it in their country house in Marly-le-Roi and called it the ‘Noor Inayat’.
Seeing Noor now on such a dangerous mission moved the Jourdans and they told her that she could occasionally use the garden of the house at Marly-le-Roi to transmit. Here she could put up her aerial in the trees. Noor went to Marly, where she found that the rose tree had grown luxuriantly and covered the house in pink blossoms. It filled her with nostalgia. Noor transmitted about four or five times from the house in Marly.
She visited the Jourdans at their Paris flat quite often and Madame Jourdan thought that she managed to relax in their company. The strain of constantly escaping from the Gestapo and carrying her wireless around with her was clearly taking its toll. Madame Jourdan noticed that Noor kept changing her hairstyle. Despite all the stress of the job, she would always bring Madame Jourdan flowers when she visited.
Though she was tense and exhausted, Noor sent back cheery letters to her family in mailbags that went in the August Lysander. She wrote to Vera Atkins that her little bird had cheered her up and things were going well. She hoped they would be celebrating soon.14 She told Vilayat in a letter that she had missed being with him on his birthday, and looked forward to seeing him in uniform. (She had learnt via Vera Atkins that he had got his commission.) She wondered when they would meet again and said they would have so much to say to each other.15 Noor also wrote to her mother. All her letters were photocopied by Déricourt and handed over to the Germans. These copies were shown to her when she was arrested.
Noor used her flat at Boulevard Richard Wallace extensively as a letterbox to pick up and drop off messages. Sometimes she transmitted from there. The concierge of the building, Madame Jourdois, later told Jean Overton Fuller that Noor always seemed to be in a rush. Her husband and she realised that Noor was leading a double life as she hardly ever stayed at the flat and strange men came and collected or left parcels for her. They knew, however, that she was a ‘nice girl’ and were aware that she was working for the Resistance.
Despite the enormous risks she was taking, Noor transmitted throughout August. One night she had a particularly narrow escape. She needed to send an urgent message to London and decided to hang her aerial from the tree on the pavement outside her flat. It was dusk and she hoped no one would notice. She dropped the aerial out of the window and went outside to pick it up. As she was struggling to hook it up on the tree, she heard a voice and spun around.
It was a German officer from one of the flats. ‘May I help you?’ he asked. Noor coolly replied that she would be grateful if he would. The officer helped her put up the aerial, no doubt thinking she was an innocent French lady who probably wanted to listen to some music on the wireless!16
Noor now took another risk. Desperate to find new places to transmit, she went to Suresnes to visit her old friends. It was a risky thing to do since she would be instantly recognised in the suburb in which she had grown up. But she trusted her instinct that her childhood friends and neighbours would not let her down. She climbed up the hill to Suresnes and almost walked up to the gate of Fazal Manzil, but good sense prevailed and she knocked instead on the door of Madame Pinchon, a few houses away.
Madame Pinchon was amazed to see Noor standing outside and even more stunned to learn about Noor’s mission. Noor told her she needed a house with a garden where she could set up a regular post. Madame Pinchon told her the house was surrounded by Germans. Even Fazal Manzil had been occupied by German soldiers. The news horrified Noor. From Madame Pinchon’s house she could see the gardens of Fazal Manzil and it broke her heart to see her childhood home now being used by the Germans.
Next she knocked on the door of her childhood friend Raymonde Prénat. Madame Prénat, like the others, was shocked to see Noor, but agreed to let her use a room in the house for transmission. They decided the front living-room would be most suitable.17 Noor immediately climbed up on the roof to find a suitable spot to put up the aerial. Raymonde remembered that Noor moved sure-footedly like a cat. Trusting her instinct, Noor felt it was safe to transmit from Suresnes. From the living room window she could clearly see the gate and anyone who was approaching. Madame Prénat had told her that in case of any emergency Noor was simply to run out of the back door and not worry about anything. Madame Prénat would hide her wireless somewhere. Although there were Germans around, Noor did not think she was putting Raymonde’s family at any great risk and she set herself up in her friend’s house for regular transmission.
She would arrive around noon and spend the rest of the day with the Prénats. In some ways it felt like old times and she was happiest there. She told Raymonde about her life over the past three years since she had left Fazal Manzil, how she had trained in England and the sort of work she did. She told Madame Prénat about the Gestapo and their methods and wondered what would happen if they arrested her. ‘It doesn’t matter! They can do what they like with me. I don’t mind. I shan’t tell them anything,’ she said.18
Carrying her transmitter around in a place where so many people could recognise her was dangerous, but Noor carried on. Meanwhile, London received her messages loud and clear. They would listen out for her at 1500 hours GMT every day.19 She would receive messages from London at around 1730 hours. Leo Marks noted with satisfaction and pride that Noor had ‘astonished all who believed they knew her’ by surviving and working in Paris where others had been arrested.20 He noted that her transmissions were flawless, with all their security checks intact.
Noor was working with French Resistance workers and saboteurs, and trying to rebuild the Prosper circuit with local contacts. The group had traced underground sewers in which the Germans stored torpedoes to be shipped to the U-boat pens at Brest,
and Noor passed on their request to London to be sent the new explosive known as ‘marzipan’ because its sweet smell resembled that of almonds.
A message from Poste Madeleine to operators in London in her own handwriting was probably carried back by the August Lysander. In it she writes:
Please arrange everyday scheds, also using 3407.
If sched is missed, possible contact at 1800 GMT same day.
Please send another 3408 crystal, one already u/s.
Suggest when message is sent blind, A1310 is repeated after message.
Have not yet found suitable operational site for night work.
Someday if possible, please send white mac, FANY style.
Thanks a lot, its grand working [with] you. The best moment I have had yet.
Kindly send one more Mark II as one is u/s – am trying to repair.
Madeleine
Noor was clearly determined to keep her spirits up and carry on working. After her initial shakiness, she had taken like a natural to the field. She even managed to talk her way through another close encounter with the Gestapo.21 One day while carrying her wireless on the Metro, she saw two German soldiers looking at her. There was no way she could get off, so she had no choice but to wait. They walked up to her and asked her what she was carrying.
‘A cinematographic apparatus,’ Noor replied, cool as a cucumber. They asked to see it and Noor opened up the briefcase slightly. She saw that they had no idea what was inside so she continued bluffing. ‘Well you can see what it is,’ she told them. ‘You can see all the little bulbs.’ The soldiers, apparently not wishing to display their ignorance of what a cinematographic apparatus might be, let her go, saying, ‘We thought it was something else.’
Poste Madeleine was now crucial to the war effort. Between July and October Noor sent over twenty messages in extremely difficult circumstances. She managed to facilitate the escape of thirty Allied airmen shot down in France and ensured that arms and money were delivered to the French Resistance. She also pinpointed positions for parachute drops of arms and arranged for other agents to escape back to England. In September she arranged false papers for four agents and saw that these were delivered from London. The agents needed identity cards, ration cards and textile cards. Her transmissions became the only link between the agents around the Paris area and London.
Occupied Paris was more dangerous than ever for the agents. The Gestapo were quite literally everywhere. As they were often not in uniform, it was difficult to spot them. Noor simply relied on her sixth sense to keep out of their way. Later Josef Kieffer, a German officer, acknowledged that Noor’s careful evasion tactics had made it very difficult to track her.22
Some time at the end of August, the Garrys moved back to Paris and took a flat in Neuilly. This would have made Noor feel less isolated. Garry’s sister Renée sometimes stayed with them. Noor began transmitting Garry’s messages to London: usually requests for arms, explosives and other commodities needed by the French Resistance. London would send details about parachute drops. Noor sometimes used their flat in Neuilly to transmit and receive messages, but knowing that the German listening machines were all trained on her, she needed to keep changing locations. Vaudevire introduced her to Madame Peineau, who agreed to let her transmit from her house in Bondy, an industrial suburb of Paris. She also said Noor could sleep in the front bedroom there.
Noor worked regularly from this address, arriving in the afternoon, transmitting and deciphering till late and leaving early the next morning. One day she was told off by Madame Peineau for leaving her notebook open on the kitchen table with all her codes in it. Once again she was told that she must not trust anyone, even people who had been introduced to her by members of the circuit.23
Noor was now moving between her flat in the Boulevard Richard Wallace, Garry’s flat in Neuilly, the house in Bondy and Raymonde’s house in Suresnes, carrying her transmitter with her all day. She was transmitting from at least five flats and houses in and around Paris. In between she had to meet her contacts and collect messages. Madame Peineau noticed that she looked exhausted.
A message from Noor carried back by Lysander on 19 September listed motor companies like BMW and Renault along with other companies that seemed to be working for Germany in violation of the terms of the Armistice. She also added that she would give the complete information on Orly (presumably targets for air strikes or sabotage) in the next eight days. A hastily handwritten note at the end of the message said that the information had been provided by Verlaine and Noor added that she would confirm the identity by wireless. She was following SOE security procedures of breaking up the message into two components to avoid revealing unnecessary details if it was intercepted.
By that same September Lysander she received a letter and a tin of sardines from her mother. Madame Peineau noticed her reading it over and over again and saw how delighted she was. She could not bring herself to eat the sardines as she regarded them as too precious, having been sent all the way from London.
In September several members of Garry’s organisation were arrested. Garry moved out of his flat in Neuilly once again and rented a studio in Porte d’Orleans. At the same time he found another room for Noor for occasional transmissions. It belonged to a friend, Solange, and was at 98 rue de la Faisanderie, not very far from the Avenue Foch, headquarters of the Gestapo. The address could also work as a letter box.
In mid-September Noor sent London a brief summary of the agents who had survived the double downfall of the Prosper and Chestnut circuits and were still available for work. She was in regular wireless contact with London and arranged for an arms drop. She had successfully, and at great risk, managed to keep in touch with agents and Resistance workers, and sent back crucial information to London. Arthur de Montalambert, who had worked with Octave Simon, had been arrested. Simon himself had returned to London in August and Noor’s contacts were slowly dying out. Liaising with Gieules and the French agents Vaudevire and Arrighi, among others, she kept up the flow of information to London for which she earned a mention in dispatches.
Noor now received instructions from London to go to the Café Colisée on the Champs Elysées, meet the cloakroom attendant and give a password, which would get her in touch with two Canadian agents of the French section. Noor did as instructed and met the two men who gave their code names as Bertrand and Valentin. What London and Noor did not know was that the real Canadian agents – Pickersgill and Macalister – had been arrested and these were Germans posing as the Canadian agents. The Germans had done their homework well. One of the agents was Karl-Horst Holdorf, an ex-steward with a US shipping line who had lived in America and spoke fluent English with an American accent. The other was Joseph Placke, who spoke poor French. Noor had no reason to suspect them. The Germans had seized the radios and codes of Pickersgill and Macalister when they arrested them and had been regularly playing back their messages to London. Not realising the deception, London had willingly provided them with a contact when they asked for it. They had sent Noor straight to the Germans.
But the Germans were wanting to make a clean sweep and wanted to get more from Noor. The two men told her they wanted to organise a network in the north of France – le Nord – but needed to contact a Monsieur Desprez, with whom London needed them to work. Noor knew that Robert Gieules was in touch with Desprez for the operation in the north.24 This had been discussed by Antelme, Gieules and later Bodington. Desprez was the director of a factory in St-Michel, Hirson. Noor told the German agents that she could put them in touch with someone who could help.
On 20 September Noor rang Gieules and told him London wanted her to put an agent in touch with Desprez.25 They arranged to establish contact on 25 September at 2.30 p.m. at the Place de l’Etoile and then have the meeting at 3 p.m. at the Société Générale de Fonderies at rue Cambaceres in Paris. Noor introduced Gieules to the two agents at the Etoile and then Gieules walked with them to the Société Générale, where they had a short meeting. Th
e two agents told Gieules that they would meet again the following week. Gieules noted that one of them spoke French and the other ‘only Canadian’. The second agent was blond with blue eyes and was wearing a large hat. Gieules later asked Noor if she knew the two men and Noor told him she had been put in touch with them by London.
A day before the meeting with the German agents, Gieules had a call from Dutilleul who had come from Le Mans to Paris. Dutilleul told Gieules that he wanted to get in touch with Antelme about matters in the north. He also asked Gieules if he had heard any news of a ‘traveller’ (code for agent from London). Meanwhile, at the meeting of 25 September, the German agents had told Gieules that a British agent called Jacques had arrived from London and wanted to know if Gieules would like to meet him. Gieules immediately connected this with the ‘traveller’ spoken of by Dutilleul and asked the Germans if he could bring a fellow agent to their next meeting. In fact, Jacques Michel had been arrested by the Gestapo on 23 September – the very day he had arrived from London. He had been given a contact in a café near the Gare de l’Est and given a password and even met an ‘agent’. After lunch he was driven to a hotel on the Avenue de la Grande Armée and, suspecting nothing, was immediately arrested. He had also been sent a message on a wireless set worked by the Germans.
Completely unaware of this, Noor rang Gieules on 28 September to arrange a meeting with the British officer. The next day she rang him again and gave him the place. He was to go to the middle of the rue Tronchet behind the Madeleine church. Gieules met one of the agents there and set up a meeting for 2 p.m. at the Place du Trocadero, near the Palais de Chaillot. There he would have to meet the agent who would put him in touch with the British officer. He said he would be wearing a tailcoat, a beige khaki raincoat and a maroon trilby hat, with a morning newspaper in his hand.
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