Operating in France

Noor was the first female radio operator to be sent to France. She was part of a group – or ‘circuit’ – of undercover agents called ‘PROSPER’, which covered a vast area of northern France. However, the circuit of interconnected agents had become too big. If one or two key figures were captured, everything would come crashing down, like dominoes.

Within a week of Noor’s arrival in Paris, PROSPER’s top agents had been arrested and her circuit had collapsed. Hundreds of French Resistance fighters were picked up and interrogated.

Noor had become the SOE’s last wireless operator left in Paris, and the Gestapo were hunting her. She tried to rebuild the circuit, and moved constantly to prevent being detected by the Gestapo’s tracking vans. Calling on old family friends, Noor moved from house to house to send messages, and even dyed her hair.

Over four months she sent and received many messages, and arranged parachute drops of arms and money to aid the Resistance.

As the net closed in, the pressure of her situation must have been unbearable. After one near-capture, she wept to a friend “I wish I was with my mother.” In October 1943 she heard she could be replaced so she finally agreed to return to England.