Beatrice Yvonne Biesterfeld was born on December 18th 1909 in Shanghai. She was the daughter of a Belgian father and Scottish mother. She married Charles Edouard Emile Cormeau in 1937. Her husband was killed during a German Air raid in 1940.
After this she enlisted in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and became the secretary to the station commander at RAF Innsworth. After this she was placed with the RAF Swinderby. She was recruited by SOE and trained as an F Section wireless operator.
She was send to France and worked there with the French Resistance for over 13 month’s. She was dropped in the night of August 22nd 1943 near St. Antoine du Queyret, to the north-east of Bordeaux. She worked with another SOE agent with “Wheelwright” the largest SOE organisation in France.
After the war she was demobilised with the WAAF the rank of flight officer and worked on with the SOE section at the Foreign Office. She married for the second time in 1988 with James Farrow, whom she had met in 1945. He died in 1992. Yvonne Cormeau herself died in 1997.
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