military_branch yvonne cormeau
Yvonne Cormeau , born Beatrice Yvonne Biesterfeld ( 18 December 1909 , Shanghai , China -- 25 December 1997 , Fleet , Hampshire , England ) was a heroine of the Special Operations Executive ( SOE ) during the Second World War who was the second female radio operator to be sent to France and who talked her way out of arrest by pretending her wireless was an X - ray machine . Hampshire (; abbreviated Hants , archaically known as the County of Southampton ) is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom . The county town of Hampshire is Winchester , the former capital city of England . Hampshire is the most populous ceremonial county in the United Kingdom ( excluding the metropolitan counties ) with almost half of the county ' s population living within the South Hampshire conurbation which includes the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth . The larger South Hampshire metropolitan area has a population of 1 , 547 , 000 . Hampshire is notable for housing the birthplaces of the ___MASK39___ , British ___MASK60___ , and ___MASK61___ . It is bordered by Dorset to the west , Wiltshire to the north - west , Berkshire to the north , Surrey to the north - east , and West Sussex to the east . The southern boundary is the coastline of the English Channel and the Solent , facing the Isle of Wight . Fleet is a town and civil parish in the Hart district of Hampshire , England , located 36 miles ( 58 km ) southwest of London and 10 miles ( 16 km ) east of Basingstoke . It is part of and is the major town of Hart District . The 2011 population ( ONS census ) for Fleet was 38 , 726 .