Britain honours Indian princess turned spy

A memorial to an Indian princess who died in a Nazi concentration camp as a British spy has been placed in the London park where she played as a child. Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth II, unveiled the bust of Noor Inayat Khan Thursday in Bloomsbury's Gordon Square, The Independent reported. The monument is the first in the country to an Asian woman. Noor's cousin, Mahmood Khan van Goens Youskine, was at the ceremony. "We are very proud and happy that Noor is being recognized in this way," he said. "We did not find out until after the war about her SOE work and what ultimately happened to her. When we did, we were naturally saddened but her spirit has lived on. Everyone -- British, Indian and beyond -- can take pride in what she did." Noor, 29 when she was parachuted into France in 1943, seemed an unlikely secret agent. She was born in Moscow to an Indian father and mother from the United States, and grew up to be a pacifist and an advocate of Indian independence. She was descended from Tipu Sultan, the "Tiger of Mysore," who resisted British rule in India in the late 18th century. When she was interviewed before she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, she said that once the Nazis were defeated, she would work for India's freedom. Noor was one of the first women to be sent into occupied Europe by the Special Operations Executive as a radio operator. She survived for three months in Paris before she was arrested. She was sent to the Dachau camp near Munich, Germany, where she was killed. She was awarded Britain's second-highest military medal, the George Cross, an honor she shares with two other women. Shrabani Basu, who has written a biography of Noor, led the drive to raise money for the monument.