The "inspiring" story of a wartime spy - one of only three women to receive the George Cross - is being told in a new exhibition opening at the RAF Museum in Hendon.

RAF airfields like Hendon - the site of the modern museum - and Hornchurch were used to fly Special Operations Executive agents into Occupied Europe during the Second World War.

Noor Inayat Khan was one of them. Born in Moscow to a father from a line of Indian aristocrats and musicians and an American mother, she had been living in Paris when the Germans invaded in 1940 but the family managed to escape to London.

But she later volunteered to go back as a French speaker to blend into the population and make contact with the Resistance, trained as a wireless operator to send back coded messages.

Noor, who was parachuted into France in 1943, chose to remain at her post as the only SOE wireless operator in Paris rather than be airlifted to safety back to London after other agents had been captured.

She was betrayed and later executed by the Nazis at Dachau Concentration camp in September 1944. Her last word was “Liberté!” She was just 29.

The Hendon museum in Grahame Park Way is displaying the George Cross posthumously awarded to Noor, the highest medal to civilian or military personnel for acts of bravery, one of only three women to receive it.

The display is integrated within the museum’s Bomber Command exhibition of the War years looking back on the people like Noor and the aircraft and technology that led to the Allied victory in 1945.

“These are a powerful representation of Noor’s sacrifice,” RAF Museum’s Maggie Appleton said. “Her story sings across the decades to inspire people of all ages and from all backgrounds.”

A preserved Westland Lysander aircraft is also on show. Noor was flown into France in June 1943 in one such aircraft. Her flight was recorded in Squadron Leader Frank Rymills’s logbook, which is on display next to her George Cross.

Noor’s story was also part of an exhibition in the summer at the site of the former RAF Hornchurch about Churchill’s female spies dropped into Occupied territory to help “set Europe ablaze”.

Historian Kim Smith said: “These women trained to use radios to send coded messages back to London. They played a vital role in liaising with the French Resistance.”

Twelve of the 39 women agents including Noor were shot or died in German concentration camps, often betrayed. Noor was pacifist by faith — but believed it was her duty to fight against the Nazis.