Queen Camilla unveils portrait honouring British SOE agent Noor Inayat Khan

Queen Camilla has unveiled a portrait of Noor Inayat Khan, a British Special Operations Executive agent.

Noor Inayat Khan infiltrated occupied France to help the French resistance. She was eventually betrayed and arrested. She was taken to Dachau concentration camp in September 1944, where she was executed. She posthumously received the George Cross.

The portrait was unveiled in the RAF Club in London, and the room in which it hangs will be renamed the Noor Inayat Khan Room.

Queen Camilla said, “I feel very humble to unveil such a brave woman. I am delighted to name this room after her. It’s a wonderful painting.”

The artist, Paul Brason, told PA news agency, “One of the difficulties about painting a portrait of someone who was operating undercover, particularly in the Second World War, is that people who work undercover don’t like photographs being taken of them. So that means, in regards to the reference material, there is not very much of it. Certainly none of it in what, dare one calls it, her professional capacity because she would avoid it.”