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The George Cross that was awarded posthumously to a Second World War spy has gone on display in a new exhibition in London.
Noor Inayat Khan served in occupied Paris with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) before ultimately giving up her life for the Allied cause.
The award has been loaned to the Royal Air Force Museum by her family and is included in a new permanent exhibition on Bomber Command during the Second World War.
Khan worked as a wireless operator in London before being deployed to Paris by the SOE as a special agent in 1943. After many of her colleagues were arrested, Khan chose to remain in post as a wireless operator in the city.
A pacifist, Khan was herself arrested and endured interrogation at the hands of the Nazis, before being executed in September 1944. The last word she uttered is reported to have been ‘Liberté!’.
Khan is one of only three women to have received the George Cross, the highest award bestowed by the British government for non-operational gallantry. The citation praises her ‘most conspicuous courage, both moral and physical, over a period of more than 12 months’.
Also on display is a Westland Lysander Mk III, similar to the aircraft in which Khan – codenamed Madeleine – flew to France in June 1943. A logbook of the flight is on show as well.
‘We are privileged and humbled to share Noor’s George Cross with our visitors,’ said Maggie Appleton, CEO of the RAF Museum.
‘The generous loan of the medal by her family is a powerful representation of her service and sacrifice,’ she added.
