Yvonne Baseden

Yvonne Jeanne de Vibraye Baseden MBE (20 January 1922 – 28 October 2017), later known as Yvonne Burney, was one of approximately forty female Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents who served in France. The objective of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE agents in France allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from Britain.

Background and early life She was born in Rue Violet, Paris. Baseden's father was a World War I pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. He crash-landed in France at the home of the Comte de Vibraye, where he was invited by the Comtesse to have dinner. Whilst at the dinner, he met and fell in love with the daughter of the Comte and Comtesse. The couple went on to marry and lived in France following the end of the War.

The family travelled and lived around Europe, so as a result Baseden was educated at schools in England, France, Poland, Italy, and Spain in addition to being bilingual (English and French), she also spoke a basic level of many other languages. In 1937, the family moved to London, where they settled in Tottenham. Baseden was uninterested in school and left school aged 16 to work apple picking in Bedfordshire. In 1939, before the outbreak of war, she moved to Southampton, where she worked as a bilingual shorthand typist in an engineering firm.

WAAF and Special Operations Executive On 4 September 1940 (aged 18), Baseden joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) as a General Duties Clerk (Service No 4189).

Member of the Order of the British Empire1939–1945 StarFrance and Germany StarWar MedalLégion d'honneur(Chevalier)Croix de Guerre (France)Médaille de la Résistance

After the war After the war, she became the first regular subject of the BBC programme This Is Your Life when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the BBC Television Theatre in September 1955.