31. Infiltrating Into Nazi-Occupied France in the Dead of Night
On the night of June 16-17, 1943, Assistant Section Officer Noor Inayat Khan, codenamed Madeline and using the fake identity Jeanne-Marie Regnier, boarded a black-painted Westland Lysander. It flew her and two other women, also SOE agents, to a clandestine airfield in German-occupied France. There, they were met by French SOE agent Henri Dericourt, who coordinated air operations between Britain and clandestine networks on the ground in France.
Dericourt’s service with the SOE was controversial. After the war, he was accused of having been a double agent working for the Sicherheitdienst (SD), the intelligence arm of the Nazi SS, and betraying SOE agents and French Resistance members to the Germans. He was tried on the charges, and was acquitted, but suspicions lingered and surrounded him to his dying day. They included suspicions of having betrayed Noor Inayat Khan.