• SPY for Britain during World War II
• Descended from Indian royalty
• Earned two college degrees: one in psychobiology of the child, and one in harp
• Wrote children's stories that taught the ideals of pacifism
• Joined the British Women's Auxiliary Air Force and became a wireless operator
• Wanted to serve as an example of how Indians were worthy of distinction and respect
• Fluent in French, she entered a training program in the Special Operations Executive and was sent to occupied France to operate covert communications
• Less than a month after her arrival, German forces arrested almost all of her British undercover contacts
• She continued her work despite being essentially isolated for nearly four months, dying her hair and moving between safe houses to communicate crucial encoded information to her counterparts in England
• One of the top names on the German most wanted list, she was hunted relentlessly
• Participated in many missions, including helping thirty airmen who had been shot down
• Caught in October 1943 by the Germans, but refused to tell them anything about herself or her mission
• Imprisoned for a year -- much of which she spent in solitary confinement because she tried to escape twice -- and then executed
• Posthumously awarded Britain's George Cross, and France's Croix de Guerre with gilt star
• In 2012 she became the FIRST Muslim and FIRST Asian woman to have a memorial in Britain when a bronze bust of her was installed in George Square Gardens in London

Public Domain Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Bibliography: Maggs, Sam. Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2016. Print.

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