Women: Special Operations Executive

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Crawley for her excellent speech and for securing this debate to celebrate the courage and tenacity of the 39 exceptional women who were members of the Special Operations Executive. It is right this evening not only that we remember these women but that we enable our children and our children's children to honour them in future years.

By the end of the war, there were 460,000 women in the military and more than 6.5 million doing civilian work. Without their contribution, we would not have won the war and secured our cherished freedom. I pay tribute to all these women, including the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. For me, the ones who stand out and who are in danger of being forgotten are the 39 women of the SOE. Many men did not believe that women should serve behind enemy lines, and recruiters were often sceptical in their assessments. However, these seemingly ordinary women, from many walks of life, were extraordinary. They left parents, lovers, husbands and even children to fight the tyranny of fascism alongside the Resistance in France. They were feminine and fearless, brave and beautiful, and we owe them a debt of honour.

This evening, my thoughts turn also to another intrepid woman, my late friend—because she was my friend—Lady Park of Monmouth, who trained operatives for the SOE. At her memorial service, we learnt that her personal gun had been crafted by the SOE armourer. As the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, said, many women helped prepare the valiant men and women of the SOE family for their work in many countries.

It is difficult to imagine the contrast between the normal lives of the SOE women and their existence in France. One-third of the women were either tortured or killed after capture, but in life all maintained their dignity and none ever betrayed anything of substance. One of the most amazing women was codenamed Madeleine. She was shot at Dachau concentration camp after months of torture and attempts to escape. She revealed nothing to her interrogators, and her last act was to shout, “Liberté”. This would have been an act of astonishing courage for any man or woman.

Madeleine’s real name was Noor Inayat Khan, of whom we have heard much this evening. She was the daughter of an Indian Sufi preacher and an American woman. She was born in Moscow and educated in Paris, where she became a writer. Apart from carrying the British passport of an imperial subject, she had no innate loyalty to the country for which she died. She was immensely brave and the first female wireless operator to be sent into France. We know that she did a fantastic job on the ground with the Resistance, and for several weeks she was the SOE's only radio contact in or near Paris. However, tragically, she was betrayed, aged 30, by the jealous girlfriend of a comrade.

I agree with Shrabani Basu, who researched Noor’s history and wrote:

“I feel it is very important that what she did should not be allowed to fade from memory, particularly living in the times that we do. Here was a young Muslim woman who gave her life for this country and for the fight against those who wanted to destroy the Jewish race. She was an icon for the bond that exists between Britain and India but also between people who fought for what they believed to be right”.

I very much hope that the planned memorial for Noor will be raised later this year, the first one in London to an Indian woman. It would help to ensure that at the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember the extraordinary women of the Special Operations Executive.