21. A Princess Infiltrates Nazi-Occupied France
In the dark of the night of June 16 – 17, 1943, Assistant Section Officer Noor Inayat Khan, was infiltrated into Nazi-occupied France. Codenamed Madeline and furnished with fake identity documents that named her as Jeanne-Marie Regnier, she boarded a black-painted Westland Lysander. It flew her and two other female SOE agents to a clandestine airfield in the countryside. 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, accusations were made that he had been a traitor and double agent. It was alleged that he had worked for the Sicherheitdienst (SD), the intelligence arm of the Nazi SS, and that he had betrayed numerous SOE agents and French Resistance members to the Germans. He was tried on the charges and was acquitted. However, suspicions lingered and surrounded him to the end of his life. They included suspicions that he had betrayed Noor Inayat Khan.