This Is Your Life: Yvonne Cormeau

Yvonne CORMEAU MBE, Legion d'Honneur, Croix de Guerre (1909-1997)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Yvonne Cormeau, former Special Operations Executive agent, was surprised by Michael Aspel during a photo shoot for the ITV drama series Wish Me Luck at the studios of London Weekend Television on London's Southbank.

Yvonne, who was born in Shanghai, grew up in Belgium, where she worked as a secretary before moving to England in 1937. After her husband was killed in the Blitz during the Second World War, Yvonne volunteered with the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and later was recruited into the Special Operations Executive - a clandestine organisation formed to encourage and facilitate espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines.

Having trained as a wireless operator, she parachuted into occupied France in August 1943 and, hunted relentlessly by the Gestapo, provided the SOE with a run of 13 months' essential communications - sending over 400 transmissions back to London, which was a record for the F Section. After the war, Yvonne returned to the UK and worked as a translator in the SOE section at the Foreign Office.

"Oh! What a surprise!"

programme details...

Edition No: 760
Subject No: 752
Broadcast date: Wed 8 Nov 1989
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Thu 28 Sep 1989
Repeated: Thu 9 Nov 1989 1.30pm
Venue: Teddington Studios
Series: 30
Edition: 3
Code name: Luck

on the guest list...

Jane Asher
cast members of Wish Me Luck
Yvette Pitt - daughter
John Pitt - son-in-law
Natasha - granddaughter
Keith - grandson
Jim - husband
Bunny Apay-Lauge
Col Maurice Buckmaster
Wg Cdr Len Ratcliff
Pierre Peroit
Yvonne Burney (nee Bailey)
Harry Collins
Simone Bouchou
Paulette Bouchou

production team...

Researchers: Sue Green, Elizabeth Ross
Writer: Roy Bottomley
Directors: Brian Klein, Paul Kirrage
Associate Producer: John Graham
Producer: Malcolm Morris

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

Military Life

saluting the armed forces

Yvonne Bailey

Screenshots of Yvonne Cormeau This Is Your Life

Scriptwriter Roy Bottomley recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, This Is Your Life: The Story of Television's Famous Big Red Book...

Millions who were enthralled by the wartime behind-enemy-lines series Wish Me Luck had no idea it was based on the real-life exploits of a war-widowed mother who happened to speak fluent French.

She was eighty-year-old Yvonne Cormeau MBE, Legion d'Honneur, Croix de Guerre. The Gestapo had always failed to surprise her. We had a more pleasant surprise.

Jane Asher was one of the stars of Wish Me Luck, and she accompanied Michael Aspel to the studios of London Weekend Television for a cast 'photo-call' to which Yvonne had been invited.

All were conspirators in our Life top secret. We took her into surprised, but delighted, custody.

'I won't cry, you know. We were trained not to,' she told Michael.

Daughter of a Belgian diplomat father and a Scots-born mother, Yvonne had been widowed early in the war and volunteered for Britain's 'secret army' – the Special Operations Executive. The legendary 'spymaster' Colonel Maurice Buckmaster, chief of the French section of the SOE trained her and gave her the codename 'Annette' (ours was 'Luck').

She was parachuted into France on the night of 23 August 1943, and told she could expect no mercy if caught. Colonel Buckmaster told us Yvonne had transmitted 389 and received no fewer than six hundred vital messages behind enemy lines 'under circumstances of extreme danger'.

The occupying forces sometimes suspected areas from which she may be operating. Once they were almost within knocking-on-the-door distance. But they ruled out the village because it had no electricity or running water. They did not believe an English woman would choose such a place to hide. With no chance of a bath?

Our final surprise was the arrival of the daughters of the French Resistance hero who had hidden Yvonne – and her give-away parachute – on the night she dropped behind enemy lines. Their father had perished in a concentration camp, but Simone and Paulette Bouchou were there to greet Yvonne. Oh... she did shed a tear.

Series 30 subjects