Yvonne Cormeau

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Yvonne Cormeau

Beatrice Yvonne Cormeau , née Biesterfeld (born December 18, 1909 in Shanghai , † December 25, 1997 in Fleet (Hampshire) ) was an agent of the British special operations executive (SOE) during World War II .

biography

Cormeau was the daughter of a Belgian consular officer and a Scottish mother. After the family returned to Europe, she spent her school days in Belgium and Scotland and was soon able to speak and write both French and English. In 1937 she married the Belgian military officer Charles Edouard Emile Cormeau and lived with him and their daughter in Belgium, where she worked as the clerk's secretary at the British embassy. After the outbreak of the war she moved to London with her husband and is said to have brought her daughter to the country for safety. In the early summer of 1940 her husband was wounded in the western campaign. Back in London as a convalescent, he lost his life in a bombing raid on the British capital, which Cormeau himself was lucky to survive.

In the fall of 1941, Cormeau joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and served at the Innsworth military airfield. In 1943, Cormeau was recruited by “SOE” for the “F” section - not least because of her perfect knowledge of French. She was given the cover name "Annette". After extensive training, she landed with her parachute on August 23, 1943 in the German-occupied France to support the Resistance there as a radio operator .

Under Colonel George Starr (code name "Hilaire"), as head of the British agent ring "Wheelright" and an important supporter of the Resistance in Gascony , Cormeau radioed more than 400 times to London for 13 months, including over 140 arms and equipment deliveries organize that were dropped by British planes for Starr's resistance circle. These deliveries played an important role in the effectiveness of the Resistance, especially after the start of the Allied invasion at the beginning of June 1944. Since Cormeau strictly adhered to the safety regulations when sparking, she was able to avoid detection by the Germans: In the remote headquarters of Starr at the foot of the Pyrenees During the spark, she observed the surroundings with binoculars and - if she spotted DF vehicles of the German occupiers - immediately cut off radio contact.

The Germans knew that a British agent was sending radio messages in the area and they were looking for Cormeau, also using wanted letters. Once she only escaped being arrested by a German patrol by using her cover identity as a local nurse. She was wounded in the leg during fighting between the Maquis and the Wehrmacht . After the liberation of Paris, she took part in the march on Toulouse with Starr and soon returned to England.

After the war, Cormeau became a British citizen and mainly took care of her daughter's upbringing. For several years she worked in the UK Foreign Office and later as a translator. She was a member of the Special Forces Club and its committee. In Valençay in 1991 Cormeau took part in the inauguration of the memorial in memory of her deceased “SOE” comrades. She remarried at the age of 80 and lived with her second husband James Edgar Farrow in Derbyshire .

Honors

literature

  • MRD Foot: 'SOE. The Special Operations Executive 1940-1946, London 1984
  • David Stafford: Secret Agent. The True Story of the Special Operations Executive. BBC Worldwide 2000, ISBN 0-563-53734-5
  • Monika Siedentopf: Jump over enemy territory. Agents in World War II. Dtv 2006, ISBN 3-423-24582-4
  • Marcus Binney: The Women who lived for Danger: The Agents of the Special Operations Executive, 2003
  • Pamela Lee Gray: Yvonne Cormeau. In: Bernard A. Cook: Women and War. A Historical Encyclopedia from Antiquity to the Present , Volume one, 2006, p. 131., ISBN 1-85109-770-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Pamela Lee Gray: Yvonne Cormeau. In: Bernard A. Cook: Women and War. A Historical Encyclopedia from Antiquity to the Present , Volume one, 2006, p. 131.
personal data
SURNAME Cormeau, Yvonne
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British agent for the Special Operations Executive
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Shanghai
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1997
Place of death Fleet (Hampshire)