Spy Princess (34 page)
Authors: Shrabani Basu
Agents and Resistance members who worked with Noor and the Prosper Circuit
Though the tangled web of the SOE circuits often overlapped, it is beyond the scope of this book to cover the stories of the other agents. However, here is a brief look at the fate of the agents and Resistance workers who were linked to Noor and the Prosper circuit and who we have described in the previous chapters. Most were killed in concentration camps. Only a few lucky survivors lived to tell their stories.
Francis Suttill
– killed at Sachsenhausen
Gilbert Norman
– executed in Mauthausen, 6 September 1944
Andrée Borrel
– executed at Natzweiler
Jack Agazarian
– killed by firing squad at Flossenburg
France Antelme
– executed at Gross Rosen
Henri Garry
– executed at Buchenwald, September 1944
Marguerite Garry
– sent to Ravensbruck, returned 1945
Charles Vaudevire
– executed at Buchenwald
Viennot
– sent to Mauthausen, returned in 1945
Paul Arrighi
– sent to Mauthausen, returned in 1945
Robert Gieules
– deported to Germany, survived the war
Arthur de Montalambert
– executed at Mauthausen
Octave Simon
– executed at Gross Rosen
William Savy
– reached England safely, survived the war
Germaine Aigrain
– returned from prison, survived the war
Raymond Andres
– died in Avenue Foch in a mine accident after the Gestapo had left in August 1944
Armel Guerne
– escaped while being transported to Germany, survived the war
Alfred Balachowsky
– deported to Buchenwald, returned in 1945
Eugène Vanderwynckt
(Head of Grignon Agricultural College) – executed in Germany
Marius Maillard
(gardener at Grignon) – killed at Dora
Robert Benoist
– executed at Buchenwald
Charles Grover Williams
– died at Sachsenhausen
John Macalister
– executed at Buchenwald
Frank Pickersgill
– executed at Buchenwald
Henri Frager
– hung by a meat hook at Buchenwald
Madeleine Damerment
– executed at Dachau
Yolande Beekman
– executed at Dachau
Diana Rowden
– executed at Natzweiler
Eliane Plewman
– executed at Dachau
Sonia Olschanezky
– executed at Natzweiler
Vera Leigh
– executed at Natzweiler
Cecily Lefort
– died at Ravensbruck
John Starr
– escaped from Mauthausen
Leon Faye
– executed at Sonnenburg
Brian Stonehouse
– returned from Dachau
Gustave Biéler
– executed at Flossenburg
Yvonne Rudellat
– died in Belsen
Jean Worms
– executed at Flossenburg
Julienne Aisner
(Déricourt’s courier) – returned to London 5/6 April 1944
Henri Déricourt
– returned to London 8/9 February 1944
Chronology
Date | Events in Noor’s life | Events in Europe | Events in India |
1 January 1914 | Birth of Noor | Unrest in Russia | |
May 1914 | Inayat Khan leaves Moscow | Tension in Europe | |
28 July 1914 | First World War begins | ||
August 1914 | Inayat Khan moves to London | ||
January 1915 | Europe at war | Gandhi returns to India from South Africa | |
13 April 1919 | Jallianwala Bagh massacre | ||
28 June 1919 | Treaty of Versailles signed | ||
Spring 1920 | Inayat Khan moves back to France | Gandhi begins Satyagraha resistance campaign | |
5 February 1927 | Inayat Khan dies | ||
April 1930 | Gandhi goes on Salt March | ||
April 1931 | Noor joins École Normale de Musique | ||
Autumn 1931 | Gandhi attends Second Round Table Conference in London | ||
30 January 1933 | Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany | ||
11-12 March 1938 | The Reich annexes Austria in the Anschluss | ||
9/10 November 1938 | Noor publishing stories in | Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass, when German Jews were attacked by the Nazis) | |
15 March 1939 | Germany invades Czechoslovakia | ||
Summer 1939 | Noor’s | Germany and Italy announce formal alliance; Germany and USSR sign non-aggression pact | |
1 September 1939 | Germany invades Poland | ||
3 September 1939 | Britain, New Zealand, Australia and France declare war on Germany | ||
10 May 1940 | Winston Churchill forms coalition government in Britain. Germany begins aggression against Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg | ||
28 May 1940 | Belgium surrenders to Germany | ||
5 June 1940 | Noor and family leave Paris | ||
9 June 1940 | Norway surrenders | ||
17 June 1940 | Pétain declares Armistice; De Gaulle leaves for Britain | ||
18 June 1940 | Noor wants to help | De Gaulle broadcasts war effort from London rallying Free French | |
28 June 1940 | British government recognises De Gaulle as leader of Free French | ||
10 July 1940 | Battle of Britain begins | ||
16 July 1940 | SOE is born | ||
19 November 1940 | Noor enlists in WAAF | ||
2 March 1941 | Germany attacks Bulgaria | ||
6 April 1941 | Germany attacks Yugoslavia and Greece | ||
5/6 May 1941 | First SOE agent George Bégué drops into France | ||
Summer 1941 | Subhas Bose begins recruiting Indian prisoners of war in Germany to join his Indian National Army in the fight for independence from the British. Meets Ribbentrop | ||
7 December 1941 | Japan attacks Pearl Harbor | ||
8 December 1941 | USA, Britain declare war on Japan | ||
14 June 1942 | Noor’s ‘The Fairy and the Hare’ broadcast on BBC Children’s Hour | ||
8 August 1942 | Congress leaders launch Quit India movement | ||
28 August 1942 | Noor attends RAF interview for Commission | All top Indian leaders in jail | |
November 1942 | Noor attends interview for SOE | Prosper circuit building up in Paris | |
February 1943 | Noor signs Official Secrets Act | Bose’s movements watched closely by SIS and IPI (Indian Political Intelligence) at Bletchley. His submarine journey monitored by British intelligence | Gandhi begins three-week fast against British violence against demonstrators. On 8 February Bose sails in a submarine organised by the Germans to reach Japan |
February 1943 | Bengal famine caused bydiversion of food to feed troops leads to three millions dead over three years (1942-4) | ||
16/17 June 1943 | Noor flown in by Lysander | ||
21 June 1943 | Cullioli, Rudellat, Macalister and Pickersgill arrested | ||
23 June 1943 | Norman, Borrel arrested | ||
24 June 1943 | Suttill arrested | ||
1 July 1943 | Worms and Guerne arrested, Grignon staff arrested | ||
2 July 1943 | Prof. Balachowsky arrested | ||
19 July 1943 | Antelme leaves | ||
22/23 July 1943 | Bodington and Agazarian return to Paris | ||
30 July 1943 | Agazarian arrested | ||
31 July 1943 | Robert Dowlen arrested | ||
2 August 1943 | Maurice Benoist, Grover Williams arrested | ||
16/17 August 1943 | Bodington returns to London | ||
19/20 August 1943 | Robert Benoist returns to London | ||
7 September 1943 | Rousset arrested | ||
29 September 1943 | Gieules arrested | ||
13 October 1943 | Noor arrested | ||
26 November 1943 | Noor sent to Pforzheim | ||
29 February 1944 | Antelme, Madeleine Damerment and Lionel Lee arrested | ||
6 June 1944 | Normandy Invasions | ||
6 July 1944 | Diana Rowden, Sonia Olschanezky, Andrée Borrel, Vera Leigh executed at Natzweiler camp | ||
17 August 1944 | Gestapo move out of Avenue Foch. Last trainload of Jews leaves France for Auschwitz | ||
26 August 1944 | De Gaulle heads parade from Arc de Triomphe to Notre Dame | ||
13 September 1944 | Noor, Eliane Plewman, Madeleine Damerment, Yolande Beekman executed at Dachau | ||
26 January 1945 | Soviet troops enter Auschwitz | ||
29 April 1945 | Dachau liberated | ||
8 May 1945 | VE Day. Germans surrender | Subhas Bose’s Indian National Army surrenders in Rangoon | |
15 August 1945 | VJ Day. Japan surrenders after bombs on Hiroshima (6 Aug) and Nagasaki (8 Aug) | ||
18 August 1945 | Subhas Bose dies in air crash | ||
November 1945 | Trial of INA officers begins in Delhi leading to an outcry | ||
16 January 1946 | Noor posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre | ||
18 February 1946 | Royal Navy Mutiny in India | ||
April 1946 | Stewart Menzies, head of SIS, and heads of Indian intelligence agree to continue cooperation | ||
2 June 1946 | Governor General Lord Wavell takes direct control over Indian intelligence - IB and IPI | ||
15 July 1947 | Britain in financial crisis. Hugh Dalton, former head of SOE, now Chancellor of the Exchequer, tries to control it | ||
8-9 August 1947 | Plans for partition of India revealed leading to riots | ||
13 August 1947 | Hugh Dalton retires ill to Wiltshire as currency crisis continues | ||
15 August 1947 | India wins independence | ||
5 April 1949 | Noor posthumously awarded the George Cross |
Indians awarded the Victoria Cross and the George Cross 1939â1945
Two and a half million Indian soldiers volunteered for the Second World War. It was the largest volunteer army in recorded history and suffered the greatest casualties. They served in fields far away from the sub-continent in Italy, Africa and the Far East and 28 VCs were awarded to members of the Indian army during the course of the war. There follows a list, plus a brief outline of the reason for the award.
A)
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Recipients of the Victoria Cross for services in the Second World War
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1.
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Jemadar Abdul Hafiz â 9th Jat Infantry â 1944, Imphal, India
Led an attack up a bare slope with no cover. Though the Japanese fired at him from the top and injured him, he continued his assault killing the enemy one by one till he had chased all the Japanese from the top of the hill. A final bullet in his chest finally grounded him, but he was still trying to give cover fire to his colleagues when he died.
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2.
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Naik Agansing Rai â 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles â 1944, Bishenpur, Burma
Securing the crucial post of Mortar Bluff and Water Picquet in the face of devastating enemy fire.
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3.
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Sepoy Ali Haidar â 13th Frontier Force Rifles â 1945, Fusignano, Italy
Destroyed enemy post in face of heavy gunfire, killing many Germans. Battalion could enter after he cleared the way, took 220 of the enemy and secured the post.
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4.
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Rifleman Bhanbhagta Gurung â 2nd Gurkha Rifles â 1945, Tamandu, Burma
Took five positions single-handedly using his bayonet, grenades and his kukri to kill the Japanese in fox-holes and bunkers, all the time under heavy fire.