Who was the royal princess recruited by the elite Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1942 to work as a radio operator?

Raised in both Britain and France, she was a bilingual descendant of Indian royalty with an American mother and a noble Indian Muslim father. Her name was Princess Noor Inayat Khan. She was recruited by the elite Special Operations Executive (SOE) and spied for Great Britain in 1942. She worked in France as a radio operator. She adeptly assumed the most dangerous resistance post in the Paris underground. She came to be called by some "Nora Baker", "Madeleine", "Jeanne-Marie Rennier", and later the "Spy Princess".

Files (national archives) held by the British government, confirmed that Khan was the first female wireless operator sent to Nazi occupied France during the war. After initially evading capture from the German Gestapo for three months, Khan was finally imprisoned, tortured and eventually shot by firing squad at Dachau concentration camp in 1944. War records note that the final word she uttered as the German firing squad raised their weapons - was simply, "Liberte". Liberty was a notion this war heroine held deeply. Her fortitude and escape attempts led even her captors to brand her "highly dangerous"; she always fought for everybody's freedom.

For her bravery, she was posthumously awarded the George Cross in Britain. In France she was honored with the Croix de Guerre. Moreover, to mark her death, a memorial sculpture of Noor Inayat Khan was unveiled in London's Gordon Square Gardens in November 2012. Our world has to remember her inspirational life.