Section Officer Yolande Elsa Marie BEEKMAN

Born Yolande Unternährer on 28 October 1911 in Paris, Yolande was the daughter of Swiss parents, Jakob and Berthe Lydie Unternährer, and took their nationality, but only only knew Switzerland through holidays as she grew up, with her two sisters, Diana and Theodora, in Paris. The family moved to England in 1929 and first settled in north-west London, though by 1943 there was no mention of her father, a businessman, in her file. On finishing her education, Yolande was fluent in English, Italian and French, all of which she spoke with a marked Swiss accent and then set up in business, working with her mother, as a designer of children’s clothes, operating from a shop at 272 Camden Road, London NW1 and living in nearby Highgate.

 

At the outbreak of war Yolande and her two sisters together joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. With the service number 2004266, Yolande was posted to a number of RAF stations until, in November 1942, while still a lowly Aircraftwoman 2nd Class (ACW2) at the RAF Records Office in Gloucester, she volunteered for French Section SOE.....[Remainder of case study is complete - contact author for further details].


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