Sunday 9 May 2021

HEROINES OF THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE – YOLANDE ELSA MARIA BEEKMAN

 

She was French born

But served as an agent for the SOE

In January 1944 “Mariette”

Was arrested by the Gestapo

Along with other members of her group

Then transported to Fresnes Prison

And interrogated and brutalized repeatedly

Before being sent to Karlsruhe in Germany,

With several other captured SOE agents

But was ultimately taken to Dachau

Along with three other agents

And in the early morning hours

Of 13th September 1944,

They were shot in the back of the head

Their bodies then immediately

Burned in the crematorium.

As far as the British were concerned

She was only missing

And she was mentioned in despatches

She was posthumously awarded

A French Croix de Guerre.

She is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial

As one of the SOE agents who died for the liberation of France,

Her name is also recorded on the Brookwood Memorial

In Surrey as one of 3,500

“To whom war denied a known and honoured grave”

And on the Valençay SOE Memorial ”Roll of Honour”

In the French town of Valençay.

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WHEN KITCHENER CALLED

When they hear the recruiter’s call And they take the King’s shilling They’re trained and uniformed And marched towards the killing