Yolande Beekman


Yolande Elsa Maria Beekman 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 during World War II where she operated as a wireless operator until arrested by the Gestapo. She was subsequently executed at the Dachau concentration camp.

Early life

Beekman was born Yolande Elsa Maria Unternährer to a Swiss father and an English mother in Paris. As a child, she moved to London and grew up fluent in English, German, and French. She had a gentle disposition and liked to draw, so her family expected that she would become a designer or illustrator. After schooling in England she was sent to a Swiss finishing school.

Wartime service

WAAF and SOE

When World War II broke out Beekman joined the WAAF where she trained as a W/T operator. Because of her language skills and wireless expertise, she was recruited by the SOE for work in occupied France, officially joining the SOE on 15 February 1943. She trained with Noor Inayat Khan and Yvonne Cormeau.
In 1943, she married Sergeant Jaap Beekman of the Netherlands Army, whom she had met on the W/T operator's course, but a short time after her marriage she said goodbye to her husband and was flown behind enemy lines in France. Beekman was landed in France on the night of 17/18 September 1943, having been flown in a Double Lysander aircraft in operation Millner.

Lands in France

In France, Beekman operated the wireless for Gustave Biéler, the Canadian in charge of the Musician circuit at Saint-Quentin in the département of Aisne, using the codenames "Mariette" and "Kilt", and the alias "Yvonne". She became an efficient and valued agent who, in addition to her all important radio transmissions to London, took charge of the distribution of materials dropped by Allied planes.
Beekman's first lodgings were with a long serving résistant and schoolmistress, Mlle Lefevre, but this could only be a temporary stay. At the beginning of October she moved to the house of Camille Boury, who worked at the Pharmacie Corteel, and lived on the corner of Rue Baudelaire. Odette Gobeaux, who worked with Boury at the pharmacy, offered Beekman the draughty attic of her house from which to transmit.
She began quietly visiting Gobeaux's house in Rue de la Fère, letting herself in with her own key during the day, placing her set on a small table and passing the long aerial out through the window above. Interviewed after the war, Gobeaux remembered Beekman often waiting for the next transmission, lying on a divan with her head in a book, apparently unruffled by the possibility of arrest. Although many operators took the precaution of travelling with one or more bodyguards, she worked alone, which was undoubtedly a sign of her courage; Eugène Cordelette, one of MUSICIAN's lieutenants, later described Bieler and Beekman as being "both of the finest stuff imaginable", but her training should have left her more mindful of security.
Following her instructions from London, Beekman transmitted using a pre‐arranged schedule, sending messages at specific times and frequencies three times a week. This was standard practice for SOE wireless operators in France, though most would try and set up several sets at different safe houses, switching between them to avoid detection. Operating from a single static radio post greatly increased the chances of being hunted down by German direction finding teams, which were known to prowl the streets of major towns and cities across the country, and it's not clear why Beekman apparently didn't use additional hideouts – perhaps it was too difficult to find suitable locations in such a densely populated area, or she might have had technical problems with the wireless sets available.
Beekman's steadfast and fearless approach had proved invaluable to the circuit, but her work was becoming riskier every day. German interception of radio signals had become very efficient by this time, and the regular times of her transmissions was helping her pursuers to gradually narrow down the area of the source. Beekman and Bieler spent Christmas Eve at the Bourys' house; they listened to the BBC and did their best to be festive. On Christmas Day she made contact with London as usual, but the following week a direction finding van was seen passing the house, an ominous sign that the net was closing in. She moved her set to the Boury house, where she was still living, but on 12 January Camille Boury noticed a man walking along the street, with his collar turned up and apparently listening to earphones. Beekman's radio signal had been traced to their block.
She immediately packed up her set and moved again, this time to the Café Moulin Brulé, a lonely safe house on the north eastern edge of the city, on the northern bank of the canal. Shaken by her narrow escape, she could rely on the café owners sheltering her for the night.

Arrest and execution

Arrest

The next day Bieler arrived at the café to discuss where she should go next, but the Gestapo were now ready to make their haul. Two men walked in and drew revolvers, arresting all those inside.

Prison

Separated from Biéler, who was later executed, Beekman was transported to Fresnes Prison several kilometres outside Paris. Again she was interrogated and brutalized repeatedly. In May 1944 she was moved with several other captured SOE agents to the civilian prison for women at Karlsruhe in Germany, where she encountered a prisoner named Hedwig Müller. Müller said after the war that Beekman "didn't leave her cell much as she suffered badly with her legs." She was confined there until September 1944, sharing a cell with Elise Johe, Annie Hagen and Clara Frank. While imprisoned, Beekman drew and embroidered. She would take a needle and prick her finger to use the blood as ink and draw on toilet paper as there was no paper and pencils.

Execution at Dachau

She was abruptly transferred to Dachau concentration camp with fellow agents Madeleine Damerment, Noor Inayat Khan, and Eliane Plewman and at dawn on the following morning, 13 September, the four women were executed.
A Gestapo man named Max Wassmer was in charge of prisoner transports at Karlsruhe and accompanied the women to Dachau. Another Gestapo man named Christian Ott gave a statement to American investigators after the war as to the fate of Beekman and her three companions. Ott was stationed at Karlsruhe and volunteered to accompany the four women to Dachau as he wanted to visit his family in Stuttgart on the return journey. Though not present at the execution, Ott told investigators what Wassmer had told him.

Awards and honours

Beekman's actions were recognized by the government of France with the posthumous awarding of the Croix de Guerre. In addition, she is recorded on the Runnymede Memorial in Surrey, England and as one of the SOE agents who died for the liberation of France, she is listed on the "Roll of Honour" on the Valençay SOE Memorial in the town of Valençay, in the Indre département of France. A later memorial, the SOE Agents Memorial in Lambeth Palace Road, is dedicated to all SOE agents.

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