Ensign Madeleine Léonie Zoé DAMERMENT

(trained as Martine DUSSAUTOY).

Photo - Maddy Brooke

Madeleine Damerment, a French national, was born exactly one year before the end of the First World War on 11 November 1917 at Tortefontaine (62), Pas De Calais, France, the middle of the three daughters (Jeannine, Madeleine and Charline) of Charles Eugène Cyrille and Madeleine (née Godin) Damerment. Her father’s job was as a senior civil servant in the French postal and telegraph service and by 1923 this had taken the family to Monastir in Tunisia where Madeleine started primary school. Her mother returned to France for the birth of youngest daughter Charline in 1924 in Roubaix, just to the north-east of Lille and close to the Belgian border, where her eldest sister, Virginie Godin, lived............ 


By the beginning of the war, the family were living in Marquette-Lez-Lille, a small town some seven kilometres north of the centre of Lille to where M. Damerment had been transferred to the position of Postmaster, with a substantial family house next door to the post office at 8 rue de l’Eglise, since renamed rue des Martyrs de la Résistance. He and his wife became well-respected members of the local community, Mme Damerment being known for her work with good causes.  After leaving school at the age of 16, Madeleine remained at home until, with her father’s help, she obtained a post of telephonist in the postal service in Lille in 1938, progressing to Assistant Postmistress in 1939 in the city’s main post office. 

       

After the fall of France in 1940, Madeleine’s parents began helping escaping French prisoners of war and Madeleine was soon involved, progressing to helping evading British soldiers and airmen........... [Remainder of case study is complete - contact author for further details].


Copyright  © Paul McCue 2014