page_title: Noor Inayat Khan
section_title: Special Operations Executive
hierarchical_section_title: Noor Inayat Khan / Special Operations Executive
caption_attribution_description: English: Kofferset 3 MK II portable radio transceiver for the communication between continental resistance movements and the London-based Bureau Bijzondere Opdrachten (a special forces unit of the dutch exile government), during WW2. It offered 4 or 5 crystal-controlled working frequencies in the 80-meter band and the 40-meter band. The frequency could be changed while transmitting. According to museumverbindingsdienst.nl, it was designed by maj. Brown of the Royal Corps of Signals Nederlands: Kofferset 3 MK II draagbare zend/ontvanger in gebruik bij de agenten van het Bureau Bijzondere Opdrachten voor de communicatie tussen de kontinentale weerstand en Londen tijdens WOII. Het bood 4 of 5 kristal-gecontroleerde werkfrequenties in de 80-meter band, en in het 40-meter band. De frequentie kan worden gewijzigd tijdens het zenden. Volgens museumverbindingsdienst.nl, werd het ontworpen door maj. Brown van de Royal Corps of Signals Français&#160;: Kofferset 3 MK II pour la diffusion de messages entre la résistance et Londres pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Le kofferset 3 MK II a le choix entre quatre ou cinq longueurs d'onde controlées pour cristaux pour la bande des 40 mètres et la bande des 80 mètres; au cours de l'émission il était possible de changer la longueur d'onde. Selon museumverbindingsdienst.nl, il a été conçu par maj. Brown, du Royal Corps of Signals
context_page_description: Noor-un-Nissa Inayat Khan, GC, also known as Nora Inayat-Khan and Nora Baker, was a British spy in World War II who served in the Special Operations Executive. As an SOE agent she became the first female wireless operator to be sent from the UK into occupied France to aid the French Resistance during World War II. She was captured after being betrayed, and executed at Dachau concentration camp. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross for her service in the SOE, the highest civilian decoration in the United Kingdom.
context_section_description: Later, Khan was recruited to join F (France) Section of the Special Operations Executive and in early February 1943 she was posted to the Air Ministry, Directorate of Air Intelligence, seconded to First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), and sent to Wanborough Manor, near Guildford in Surrey, after which she was sent to Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, for special training as a wireless operator in occupied territory.
  She would be the first woman to be sent over in that capacity, all the woman agents before her having been sent as couriers. Having had previous wireless telegraphy (W/T) training, she had an edge on those who were just beginning their radio training, and was both fast and accurate.
  From Aylesbury she went on to Beaulieu, where the security training was capped with a practice mission – in the case of wireless operators, to find a place in a strange city from which they could transmit back to their instructors without being detected by an agent unknown to them who would be shadowing them.
  The ultimate exercise was the mock Gestapo interrogation, intended to give agents a taste of what might be in store for them if they were captured and some practice in maintaining their cover story. Her escaping officer found her interrogation "almost unbearable" and reported that "she seemed terrified ... so overwhelmed she nearly lost her voice", and that afterwards "she was trembling and quite blanched."
  Her finishing report, which the official historian of F Section found in her personal file long after the war, read: "Not overburdened with brains but has worked hard and shown keenness, apart from some dislike of the security side of the course. She has an unstable and temperamental personality and it is very doubtful whether she is really suited to work in the field." Next to this comment, Maurice Buckmaster, the head of F Section, had written in the margin "Nonsense" and that "We don't want them overburdened with brains."
  Her superiors held mixed opinions on her suitability for secret warfare, and her training was incomplete due to the need to get trained W/T operators into the field. Khan's "childlike" qualities, particularly her gentle manner and "lack of ruse", had greatly worried her instructors at SOE's training schools. One instructor wrote that "she confesses that she would not like to have to do anything 'two faced'", while another said she was "very feminine in character, very eager to please, very ready to adapt herself to the mood of the company, the one of the conversation, capable of strong attachments, kind hearted, emotional, imaginative."
  A further observer said: "Tends to give far too much information. Came here without the foggiest idea what she was being trained for." Later, others commented that she was also physically unsuited, claiming that she would not easily disappear into a crowd.
  Physically quite small in stature, she received poor athletic reports from her instructors: "Can run very well but otherwise clumsy. Unsuitable for jumping" "Pretty scared of weapons but tries hard to get over it."
  Khan was training as a W/T operator, and in that field she was getting quite adequate reports. Her "fist", or style of tapping the keys, was somewhat heavy, apparently owing to her fingers being swollen by chilblains, but her speed was improving every day. Like many talented musicians – Khan played the harp – she was a natural signaller.
  Further, Vera Atkins (the intelligence officer for F Section) insisted, her commitment was unquestioned, as another training report had readily confirmed: "She felt she had come to a dead end in the WAAF, and was longing to do something more active in the prosecution of the war, something that would demand more sacrifice." So when Suttill's request first came, Vera saw Khan as a natural choice, and although her final training in field security and encoding had to be cut short, she judged her ready to go.
  Khan's mission would be an especially dangerous one. So successful had female couriers been that the decision was made to use them as wireless operators as well, which was even m
caption: B MK II receiver and transmitter (also known as the B2 radio set)
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