Beatrice "Yvonne" Cormeau (1909-1997)

DOSSIER:
Beatrice Yvonne Biesterfeld, daughter of a Belgian consular official, was born on 18 Dec 1908 in Shanghai, China. She was living in London when, in 1937, she married Charles Edouard Emile Cormeau with whom she had their daughter, Yvette. Charles enlisted in The Rifles and, after being wounded in France, was sent back to the UK. Shortly afterwards he was killed when their London home was bombed. Amazingly, Yvonne's life was saved by a bath that fell over her head and protected her.

CODE NAMES:

Annette

Fairy

Sarafari

Newly widowed, Yvonne decided to take her husband's place in the Armed Forces and joined the WAAF as an administrator in November 1941.  While serving at RAF Swinderby she answered an appeal on the noticeboard for linguists, was recruited by SOE and trained as an F Section wireless operator on 15 Feb 1943. She was promoted to the rank of Flight Officer. Yvette was only two years old at the time and was placed in a convent of Ursine nuns in Oxfordshire where she remained until she was five. 

Yvonne did her SOE training with Yolande Beekman, Cecily Lefort and Noor Inayat Khan. On the night of 22 Aug 1943 she left Tempsford airbase and was parachuted into St Antoine du Queyret, northeast of Bordeaux. She was given a powder compact by Colonel Maurice Buckmaster before leaving for France. Her role was to work as courier and wireless operator in the Wheelwright circuit with George Starr. Whilst carrying out her secret operations in Occupied France she used the code names "Annette", "Fairy" and "Sarafari".

Yvonne was almost arrested by the Germans after being betrayed by an agent (code named Rodolph). However, she continued to operate, despite being confronted by wanted posters in her neighborhood which gave an accurate sketch of her appearance. Her success was possibly owed to the fact that she used car batteries rather than mains power, making it more difficult for the German D/F vans to find her.

Famously, Cormeau and Starr was stopped at a German road block and questioned while a gun was held in their backs. Eventually the Germans accepted her story and I.D. that she was a district nurse, and she succeeded in passing her wireless equipment off as an X-ray machine.

She sent over 400 transmissions back to London, which was a record for the F Section, and made arrangements for arms and supplies to be dropped for the local maquis. She also assisted in the cutting of the power and telephone lines, resulting in the isolation of the Wehrmacht Group G garrison near Toulouse.

She worked for 13 months and evaded arrest despite some narrow escapes. While operating in France Yvonne was shot in the leg by a German patrol, but managed to escape. (The dress she wore on this occasion and the bloodstained briefcase she carried are on permanent display in the Imperial War Museum in London.)

After the war, Yvonne and her daughter were reunited and lived in London, where she remarried to James Edgar Farrow. She spent her later years in Fleet, Hampshire, England at the Tall Pines nursing home where she died on 25 Dec 1997.