![Gers-Position](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Gers-Position.svg)
Yvonne Cormeau, born Beatrice Yvonne Biesterfeld (18 December 1909 – 25 December 1997), code name ''Annette,'' was an agent of the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
's clandestine organization, the
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...
(SOE), in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. She was the wireless operator for the
Wheelwright
A wheelwright is a craftsman who builds or repairs wooden wheels. The word is the combination of "wheel" and the word "wright", (which comes from the Old English word "''wryhta''", meaning a worker or shaper of wood) as in shipwright and arkw ...
network led by
George Starr in southwestern France from August 1943 until the liberation of France from
Nazi German
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
occupation in September 1944. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers. SOE agents allied themselves with
French Resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
Cormeau was acclaimed for the quality and quantity of her wireless transmissions. SOE cryptographer
Leo Marks
Leopold Samuel Marks, (24 September 1920 – 15 January 2001) was an English writer, screenwriter, and cryptographer. During the Second World War he headed the codes office supporting resistance agents in occupied Europe for the secret Special ...
said that in more than 400 transmissions Cormeau never made a single mistake. Cormeau also survived an unusually long time for wireless operators who were vulnerable to detection and capture by the German occupiers. She was a recipient of the Order of the British Empire from the United Kingdom and the Legion of Honor and Croix de Guerre from France.
Early life
Beatrice Yvonne Biesterfeld was born in 1909 to a Belgian consular official and Scottish mother. She was educated in both Belgium and
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
. She was living in London when in 1937 she married Charles Emile Cormeau, a chartered accountant. Her husband enlisted in
The Rifle Brigade
The Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own) was an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army formed in January 1800 as the "Experimental Corps of Riflemen" to provide sharpshooters, scouts, and skirmishers. They were soon renamed the "Rifle ...
and in 1940 he was wounded in France and was sent back to the UK. Shortly afterwards he was killed when their London home was bombed. Her life was saved by a bathtub which fell over her head and protected her, although killing her unborn baby. She sent her two-year-old daughter Yvette to the countryside to escape the frequent bombing of London.
World War II
Recruitment and training
Newly widowed, Cormeau decided to "take her husband's place in the Armed Forces" and she joined the
WAAF WAAF may refer to:
* w3af, (short for web application attack and audit framework), an open-source web application security scanner
* Women's Auxiliary Air Force, a British military service in World War II
** Waaf, a member of the service
* WAAF (AM ...
as an administrator in November 1941 (Service No 2027172). While serving at
RAF Swinderby
Royal Air Force Swinderby or more simply RAF Swinderby was a Royal Air Force station airfield opened in 1940, one of the last of the stations completed under the RAF's expansion plans started in the 1930s. It was built near the village of Swin ...
she answered an appeal on the noticeboard for linguists, and was recruited by SOE and began training as an F Section wireless operator on 15 February 1943. She was promoted to the rank of
Flight Officer
The title flight officer was a military rank used by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, and also an air force rank in several Commonwealth countries, where it was used for female officers and was equivalent to the rank of flig ...
. Her daughter, Yvette, was only two years old at the time. Cormeau placed her in a convent of
Ursuline nuns in
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...
where she remained until she was five. She did her SOE training with
Yolande Beekman
Yolande Elsa Maria Beekman (7 January 1911 – 13 September 1944) was a British spy in World War II who served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and the Special Operations Executive. She was a member of SOE's Musician circuit in occupied France ...
and
Noor Inayat Khan
Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, GC (1 January 1914 – 13 September 1944), also known as Nora Inayat-Khan and Nora Baker, was a British resistance agent in France in World War II who served in the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The purpose of S ...
. She was the only one of the three to survive her mission to France.
On the night of 22 August 1943 Cormeau left
RAF Tempsford
RAF Tempsford is a former Royal Air Force station located north east of Sandy, Bedfordshire, Sandy, Bedfordshire, England and south of St. Neots, Cambridgeshire, England.
As part of the Royal Air Force Special Duty Service, the airfield wa ...
and was parachuted into
Saint-Antoine-du-Queyret, east of
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...
. Her assignment was to work as the wireless operator on the SOE F Section Wheelwright circuit in Gascony. The leader of the circuit (or network) was George Starr, code name ''Hilaire,'' whom she had known before the war when living in
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
. Her code name was ''Annette.'' She declined to take with her the
cyanide
Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms.
In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...
pill offered by SOE to agents so they could commit suicide if captured. She arrived armed with a .22 revolver, but, on Starr's advice, she never carried it with her during her thirteen months in France. To be captured by the Germans while carrying a firearm or a cyanide pill was, he told her, a death sentence.
Wireless operations
Cormeau was a talented and accurate wireless (W/T) operator, being able to transmit 18 to 22 words per minute in
Morse code
Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...
, compared with the 12 words per minute of the average operator. This was important because the longer an operator (called a "pianist" in SOE slang) was on line the more likely the Germans were to find them using direction finding equipment.
The standard wireless transceiver issued to SOE wireless operators was the B Mark II, a cumbersome machine concealed in a suitcase. It required the operator to extend a wire aerial long. In the rural areas in which Cormeau worked she often stretched the aerial through a vineyard. The wireless could be powered by either AC (household) electricity or an automobile battery. Cormeau preferred to use a battery as she believed it was harder for the Germans to locate the source of the transmission and also because the villages in which she worked often lacked electricity. She carried the crystals for the machine and the codes separately in a hidden pocket of her briefcase. She preferred to use codes written on silk handkerchiefs rather than more cumbersome
one-time pad
In cryptography, the one-time pad (OTP) is an encryption technique that cannot be cracked, but requires the use of a single-use pre-shared key that is not smaller than the message being sent. In this technique, a plaintext is paired with a ran ...
s made of paper. Early in her mission, SOE provided Cormeau with a much more portable Type A MK III wireless which weighed only and was contained in an attache case.
The most important way for a wireless operator to avoid detection and arrest was to use the wireless only briefly (not more than 20 minutes per transmission), infrequently, and from widely different locations. The life of a wireless operator was lonely. The SOE's instructions were, "The ideal is for the W/T operator to do nothing but W/T work, to see his organiser
eaderas little as possible, if at all, and to have contact with the fewest possible number of the circuit."
At work
In the first few months she was in France, Cormeau worked also as a courier for Starr. She was scheduled to do three wireless transmissions a week, which also involved coding and decoding messages. The Wheelwright network was large in area and she changed her location often, never staying in one house more than three days. This was for her own security, as well as the security of the rural families who permitted her to stay with them and transmit from their homes and properties. As the Wheelwright network was large in area, she often had to bicycle up to to change residences and to deliver or receive messages. While traveling around, she also identified fields that could be used to parachute supplies or as landing areas for airplanes and supplied the coordinates to SOE in London. She identified herself as a district nurse, thus giving her a reason for moving from place to place if stopped by Germans or the French police, the
Milice
The ''Milice française'' (French Militia), generally called ''la Milice'' (literally ''the militia'') (), was a political paramilitary organization created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy France, Vichy regime (with Nazi Germany, German aid) t ...
, to check her papers. She was almost arrested by the Germans after being betrayed by an agent codenamed Rodolph. However, she continued to operate, despite being confronted by "wanted" posters in her neighbourhood which gave an accurate sketch of her appearance. She was stopped at a German roadblock with Starr; the pair was questioned while a gun was held to their backs. Eventually the Germans accepted her story and the false identification papers and she succeeded in passing her wireless equipment off as an X-ray machine.
In the early months of 1944, as the
invasion of France
France has been invaded on numerous occasions, by foreign powers or rival French governments; there have also been unimplemented invasion plans.
* the 1746 War of the Austrian Succession, Austria-Italian forces supported by the British navy attemp ...
by
allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
was anticipated, the tempo of activity by the resistance increased and Cormeau's work as a wireless operator became more demanding. She now transmitted several times a day and she stayed for lengthy periods in one place, the hilltop village of
Castelnau-sur-l'Auvignon, the headquarters of George Starr.
The official historian of SOE,
M.R.D. Foot
Michael Richard Daniell Foot, (14 December 1919 – 18 February 2012) was a British political and military historian, and former British Army intelligence officer with the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War.
Biography
The ...
described Cormeau's work:
he was
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
a perfectly unobtrusive and secure craftswoman...She broke one of the strictest rules of wireless security--i.e. always keep on the move--with success: she transmitted for six consecutive months from the same house. She could see for three miles from the window where she worked, which was one safeguard; a more effective one was that there was no running water in the village, so the Germans who knew there was an English wireless operator somewhere close by never thought of looking for her there.
Cormeau sent over 400 messages to London, second only to Auguste Floiras of the
Jockey
A jockey is someone who rides horses in horse racing or steeplechase racing, primarily as a profession. The word also applies to camel riders in camel racing. The word "jockey" originated from England and was used to describe the individual ...
network who operated for a longer period of time. She made arrangements for arms and supplies to be dropped for the local
Maquis
Maquis may refer to:
Resistance groups
* Maquis (World War II), predominantly rural guerrilla bands of the French Resistance
* Spanish Maquis, guerrillas who fought against Francoist Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War
* The network ...
. She assisted in the cutting of the power and telephone lines, resulting in the isolation of the Wehrmacht Group G garrison near
Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
.
In June 1944, Cormeau was shot in the leg while escaping from a German attack on Castelnau, but managed to escape with her wireless. The dress she wore on this occasion and the bloodstained briefcase she carried are on permanent display in the
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...
in London along with her WAAF officer's uniform. On 21 August, Toulouse fell to the
French Forces of the Interior
The French Forces of the Interior (french: Forces françaises de l'Intérieur) were French resistance fighters in the later stages of World War II. Charles de Gaulle used it as a formal name for the resistance fighters. The change in designation ...
, the umbrella organisation of resistance fighters. Starr and Yvonne Cormeau drove into the city, American and British flags on their car. The liberation of southwestern France was complete. On 25 September, Cormeau and George Starr departed France, nine days after Starr and
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...
clashed and he ordered them out of the country.
Honours and decorations
After the war she was appointed
MBE Mbe may refer to:
* Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo
* Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria
* Mbe language, a language of Nigeria
* Mbe' language, language of Cameroon
* ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language
Molal ...
, and decorated with the
Légion d'honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
,
Croix de Guerre
The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awa ...
and
Médaille de la Résistance
The Resistance Medal (french: Médaille de la Résistance) was a decoration bestowed by the French Committee of National Liberation, based in the United Kingdom, during World War II. It was established by a decree of General Charles de Gaulle on 9 ...
.
{{center,
![Order of the British Empire (Military) Ribbon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Order_of_the_British_Empire_%28Military%29_Ribbon.png)
{{ribbon devices, number=0, type=service-star, ribbon=39-45 Star BAR.svg, width=103
{{ribbon devices, number=0, type=service-star, ribbon=France and Germany Star BAR.svg, width=103
![Defence Medal BAR](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Defence_Medal_BAR.svg)
{{ribbon devices, number=0, type=service-star, ribbon=Legion Honneur Chevalier ribbon.svg, width=103
{{ribbon devices, number=0, type=service-star, ribbon=Croix de Guerre 1939-1945 ribbon.svg, width=103
{{ribbon devices, number=0, type=service-star, ribbon=Medaille de la Resistance ribbon.svg, width=103
{, class="wikitable" style="margin:1em auto; text-align:center;"
, colspan=4, Member of the
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
, -
,
1939–1945 Star
The 1939–1945 Star is a military campaign medal instituted by the United Kingdom on 8 July 1943 for award to British and Commonwealth forces for service in the Second World War. Two clasps were instituted to be worn on the medal ribbon, Battl ...
,
France and Germany Star
The France and Germany Star is a military campaign medal, instituted by the United Kingdom in May 1945 for award to British Commonwealth forces who served in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands or Germany and adjacent sea areas between ...
,
Defence Medal
, -
,
Légion d'honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
(Chevalier)
,
Croix de Guerre (France)
The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awa ...
,
Médaille de la Résistance
The Resistance Medal (french: Médaille de la Résistance) was a decoration bestowed by the French Committee of National Liberation, based in the United Kingdom, during World War II. It was established by a decree of General Charles de Gaulle on 9 ...
Postwar
A year after the end of the war, Cormeau was
demobilised
Demobilization or demobilisation (see spelling differences) is the process of standing down a nation's armed forces from combat-ready status. This may be as a result of victory in war, or because a crisis has been peacefully resolved and militar ...
with the WAAF rank of
Flight Officer
The title flight officer was a military rank used by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, and also an air force rank in several Commonwealth countries, where it was used for female officers and was equivalent to the rank of flig ...
. She then worked as a translator and in the SOE section at the
Foreign Office
Foreign may refer to:
Government
* Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries
* Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries
** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government
** Foreign office and foreign minister
* Unit ...
. She became a linchpin of F Section veterans and arranged their annual
Bastille Day
Bastille Day is the common name given in English-speaking countries to the national day of France, which is celebrated on 14 July each year. In French, it is formally called the (; "French National Celebration"); legally it is known as (; "t ...
dinner.{{citation needed, date=October 2014 Cormeau and her daughter, Yvette Pitt, were reunited and lived in London. Cormeau was one of the earliest members of the
Special Forces Club
The Special Forces Club (SFC) is a private members' club located at 8 Herbert Crescent in Knightsbridge, London. Initially established in 1945 for former personnel of the Special Operations Executive, members of wartime resistance organisations, ...
in London and she was a committee member. She promoted
Anglo-French relations
Anglo-French (or sometimes Franco-British) may refer to:
* France–United Kingdom relations
* Anglo-Norman language or its decendants, varieties of French used in medieval England
*Anglo-Français and Français (hound), an ancient type of hunting ...
.{{citation needed, date=October 2014
In her 70s, she married again to James Edgar Farrow, with whom she lived in
Derbyshire
Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
. He predeceased her. She spent her later years at Tall Pines nursing home, formerly in Gally Hill Road, Fleet, Hampshire. After Yvonne Cormeau-Farrow died, she was survived by her daughter. Her memorial service was attended by representatives from both UK and French governments.{{citation needed, date=October 2014
She was the subject of ''
This Is Your Life'' in 1989 when she was surprised by
Michael Aspel
Michael Terence Aspel (born 12 January 1933) is an English retired television newsreader and host of programmes such as '' Crackerjack'', ''Aspel & Company'', ''Give Us a Clue'', '' This is Your Life'', '' Strange but True?'' and ''Antiques Ro ...
.{{Citation needed, date=September 2021 She was interviewed for the movie
''Charlotte Gray'' and described as the "real Charlotte" of the novel and film. She was an advisor to the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
.
* Squadron Leader Beryl E. Escott, Mission Improbable: A salute to the RAF women of SOE in wartime France, London, Patrick Stevens Ltd, 1991; ISBN
* Liane Jones, ''A Quiet Courage: Women Agents in the French Resistance'', London, Transworld Publishers Ltd, 1990; {{ISBN, 0-593-01663-7
*
, ''The Women Who Lived for Danger: The Women Agents of SOE in the Second World War'', London, Hodder and Stoughton, 2002; {{ISBN, 0-340-81840-9
* She was the subject of a 'This is Your Life' programme in November 1988
* {{cite news, title=Yvonne Cormeau, url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3752092.ece, work=The Times, date=8 January 1998, access-date=10 October 2009