They Fought Alone: The True Story of the Starr Brothers, British Secret Agents in Nazi-Occupied France
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Haug and I followed her: BNA, HS 9/836/5, Testimony of Werner Ruehl, November 1946. See also Shrabani Basu, Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan (Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, 2006), 153–54. Noor Inayat Khan was born on January 2, 1914, in Russia.
“Another few days”: Fuller, Madeleine, 146. Corporal Ruehl later stated, “About two hours later I heard that Madeleine had, all the same, been arrested, I believe, by [Corporal Alfred von] Kapri. Kieffer and the whole office were obviously delighted.”
“You know who I am”: Ibid., 147.
“Madeleine, after her capture”: BNA, HS 9/836/5, “Extract from a deposition on oath of Hans KIEFFER, Commandant of the Gestapo, sworn before a War Crimes Investigative unit on 19.1.47.”
“she was the best human being”: Fuller, The German Penetration of SOE, 109.
“light brown hair”: Fuller, Madeleine, 163.
“more than forty or so”: IWM, J. V. Overton Fuller Collection, Box 8, File 2, letter, John Starr to Jean Overton Fuller, July 12, 1953.
Faye also secreted notes: Ibid., letter, John Starr to Jean Overton Fuller, May 26, 1953.
“He asked me if I thought”: Ibid.
They too needed a screwdriver: There are various accounts of the escape plan, most of them based on information provided by John Starr. BNA, KV 6/29, “Rough Report by Capt. J.A.R. Starr, dictated to C.S.M. Goddard at Stn. XXVIII commencing 9 May 1945”; IWM, J. V. Overton Fuller Collection, Box 8, File 2, John Starr letters to Jean Overton Fuller; Fuller, The Starr Affair, 69–77; Fuller, Madeleine, 164–71; Basu, Spy Princess, 162–65; Sarah Helm, A Life in Secrets: The Story of Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE (New York: Little, Brown, 2005), 116–18.
John noticed a truncheon: IWM, J. V. Overton Fuller Collection, Box 8, File 2, letter, John Starr to Jean Overton Fuller, January 15, 1954.
“a great insight”: BNA, HS 9/836/5, “A Report About Captain John Starr (by Kieffer).” Kieffer added, “It was at precisely this time that the capture of the W/T operator, ‘Madeleine,’ of the French Section and of Colonel ‘FAYE’ of the French Resistance Movement took place.”
interrogators in Dijon tortured him: Fuller, The German Penetration of SOE, 119.
CHAPTER TEN: SABOTAGE
“Women were as brave”: Maurice Buckmaster, They Fought Alone: The True Story of SOE’s Agents in Wartime France (1958; repr., Biteback Publishing, 2014), 232.
“Now I’m going”: Jeanne and Michèle Robert, Le Réseau Victoire dans le Gers: Mémoires du 19 mai à la liberation (Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire: Editions Alan Sutton, 2003), 115. The book includes the complete text of Maurice Rouneau’s wartime memoir, Quatre ans dans l’ombre (Rennes les Bains: A. Bousquet, 1948).
“I looked in vain”: Letter from Maurice Rouneau to Philippe de Gunzbourg, April 9, 1952, Archives départementales du Gers, 16 J, Folder “Colonel Starr (Hilaire).”
Maurice Jacob, head of: Maurice Jacob died in Bergen-Belsen on April 18, 1944. See originals of Paul Blasy’s testimony at www.7juin44.fr/spip.php?article88&lang=fr.
house of Marius Sorbé: BNA, HS 6/456.
“He fell out with me”: George Starr, IWMSA, Recording 24613, 1978, Reel 14, www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80022295.
Rain beat down: Robert, Le Réseau Victoire dans le Gers, 119.
“The slightest misstep”: Ibid., 125.
George arranged for Roland Mansencal: Lieutenant Colonel E. G. Boxshall, “WHEELWRIGHT Circuit,” in E. G. Boxshall and M.R.D. Foot, “Chronology of SOE Operations with the Resistance in France During World War II,” December 1960, IWM, London, 05/76/1.
“These are the days”: Raymond Escholier, Maquis de Gascogne (Geneva: Editions du Milieu du Monde, 1945), 73.
“permission to make concentrated attacks”: BNA, HS 9/1407/1.
“We had our courier service”: Yvonne Cormeau, IWMSA, September 2, 1984, Catalogue number 7369, www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80007171.
Walters’s field code name: For their flight to France, Walters’s temporary code name was “Hairdresser” and Arnault’s “Milkmaid.”
Gray’s aircraft crashed: Carpetbagger Aviation Museum, Harrington, Northamptonshire. Archive at http://harringtonmuseum.org.uk/Aircraft%20lost%20on%20Allied%20Forces%20Special%20Duty%20Operations.pdf.
“suffered shock and concussions”: BNA, HS 9/339/2.
But the RAF: George Starr, IWMSA, Reel 10.
“I went out in the dark”: Ibid.
“When both our pistols”: Jean Overton Fuller, The German Penetration of SOE: France, 1941–1944 (Maidstone, UK: George Mann, 1975), 119–20.
Stork called only “Untersturmführer X”: BNA, WO 311/933 and WO 208/4679. In his postwar “voluntary statement,” Kieffer’s driver, Josef Stork, provided a contradictory account of the Vogt-Dubois encounter. He claimed it took place in early 1944, although Vogt, Starr, and other sources insisted it took place on November 19, 1943. He also said he drove Vogt, Scherer, and other SD men to a place in Paris, although other sources said it was a farmhouse outside Paris. “I remained on the road near the car. SCHEERER [sic] then went to the flat again where, as VOGT told me later, the man who was to be arrested was waiting for them. After some minutes I heard a wild exchange of shots. Fearing the worst I ran to the flat and there on the staircase I met Untersturmfuehrer X who was also hurrying up to the third floor where the shooting came from. As we got there VOGT who had been injured by six shots came out of the flat and the door was shot from inside. VOGT told us that SCHEERER [sic] had been seriously wounded. The three of us pushed upon the door whereupon a man jumped into the doorway from inside. I could not see him as I was on the blind side of the doorway. This man was immediately shot in the head by Untersturmfuehrer X. Then we rushed into the flat and found SCHEERER [sic] dying but no one else was there except the dead man. . . . I with the help of the German Field Police had the wounded man taken to La Pitie hospital in a French Red Cross car. Some weeks later, after his recovery, he was taken from there to the prison. VOGT too was taken to hospital.”
“You should not have fired”: Jean Overton Fuller, Conversations with a Captor (West Sussex, UK: Fuller d’Arch Smith, 1973), 52.
“After [a] three months stay”: BNA, KV 6/29, “Rough Report by Capt. J.A.R. STARR, dictated to C.S.M Goddard at Stn. XXVIII commencing 9 May 1945.”
“as the R.A.F. came over”: Ibid.
“I went back to”: IWM, J. V. Overton Fuller Collection, Box 8, File 2, letter, John Starr to Jean Overton Fuller, May 26, 1953.
“All three had broken”: BNA, HS 9/836/5, “A Report About Captain John STARR (by Kieffer).”
Khan erupted in tears: Jean Overton Fuller, Madeleine: The Story of Noor Inayat Khan (London: Victor Gollancz, 1952), 173–75, and The Starr Affair (London: Victor Gollancz, 1954), 178–80.
“As you will have realized”: Fuller, The Starr Affair, 76.
“‘Madeleine’ had approached him”: BNA, HS 9/836/5, “A Report About Captain John Starr (by Kieffer).”
Kieffer and von Kapri came: BNA, KV 6/29, “Interrogation of J.A.R. Starr, 28th and 30th May, 1945.”
“So long as you keep me here”: Fuller, The Starr Affair, 82.
he “would still have the chance”: Jean Overton Fuller, Doubt Agent?: Light on the Secret Agents’ War in France, (London: Pan, 1961), 10–11.
“in contrast to the French officers”: BNA, HS 9/836/5, “A Report About Captain John Starr (by Kieffer).”
“‘Madeleine’ and ‘Faye’ were subsequently conveyed”: Ibid.
arrested Professor Balachowsky: The Germans sent Balachowsky to Buchenwald concentration camp on January 17, 1944. At Madame Balachowsky’s request, Placke had her husband transferred to the scientific block at the camp, giving him a better chance of survival.
John Starr was alive: Fuller, The German Penetration of SOE, 86–87 and 121.
von Kap
ri took aim: IWM, J. V. Overton Fuller Collection, Box 8, File 2, letter, Ernest Vogt to Jean Overton Fuller, September 12, 1954.
In another bed, Norman saw: Fuller, The German Penetration of SOE, 123.
“Return to France!”: Robert, Le Réseau Victoire dans le Gers, 142–43.
Yvonne confirmed that sympathetic: Cormeau, IWMSA, September 2, 1984.
“New Year’s Eve bash of locomotives”: Maurice Loupias, dit Bergerac, Messages personnels (np: Amicale Bergeret Résistance, Dordogne-Sud, 1999), 110.
“It’s very difficult to send people”: George Starr, IWMSA, Reel 7.
found the pair caked in mud: Archives départementales du Gers, 42 J 18 G. The reception committee listed for the night of January 3–4, 1944, included the names “Cantal, Dumartin, Daubin, Fiton.” The BBC personal message signaling the drop was “La vertu est une qualité rare” (Virtue is a rare quality).
“Colette looked like”: Archives départementales du Gers, 42 J 18 G, “Histoire de parachutage dans l’Armagnac,” La Gascogne, April 10, 1945. See also Anne-Marie Walters, Moondrop to Gascony, foreword by M.R.D. Foot, introduction and notes by David Hewson (1946; rept., Petersfield, UK: Harriman House, 2009), 33.
“He was practically bald”: Walters, Moondrop to Gascony, 50.
“I am very strict on discipline”: Ibid.
“to impress the little bitch”: George Starr, IWMSA, Reel 4.
Walters believed the story: The mayor and residents of Castelnau-sur-l’Auvignon said to me during interviews in January 2014 that Starr had been tortured before his arrival there. When I asked Jeanne Robert whether the Germans tortured him, she said, “On his skin, yes. He had a triangle on his arm from a branding iron. And on the back. He showed it to us. And on the leg, but to me, he did not show that.” When I pressed her, she explained, “Lies are necessary in war.” Marie-Louise Lac wrote, “Before coming to the Gers, he had been taken by the Gestapo in Lyon. He was tortured, and his torso bore the scars of the ill-treatment that had been inflicted on him by the Nazi torturers, but he never spoke of it.” See Archives départementales du Gers, 42 J 134, “Souvenirs de la Résistance.” In fact, George Starr was neither captured nor tortured.
I’ve had to go everywhere: Walters, Moondrop to Gascony, 58.
“a student from Paris”: BNA, HS 9/339/2, “Para girl,” BBC interview with Anne-Marie Walters, January 16, 1945.
Maurice Southgate parachuted into: BNA, HS 9/1395/3. See also Susan Ottoway, Sisters, Secrets and Sacrifice: A True Story (New York: HarperCollins, 2013), 90.
“he stuck to his job”: Buckmaster, They Fought Alone, 174.
resume his work with the STATIONER circuit: Archives départementales du Gers, 42 J 18 G.
young Arnault “was in love”: George Starr, IWMSA, Reel 17.
told Walters that “suspicious people”: Walters, Moondrop to Gascony, 136. See also note 6, 260: David Hewson wrote, “The ‘suspicious people’ turned out to be Jacques Poirier (Nestor) and members of his SOE DIGGER circuit. There was some rivalry between Starr and Poirier over control of the Dordogne and very little cooperation between the two organisations.”
“came almost every day”: Ibid., 72–73.
led by SOE organizers: BNA, HS 9/1539/5. Vomécourt’s debrief on the affair stated: “When the rest of the prisoners were being marched back from roll-call in groups of seven, each group was accompanied by a ‘friendly’ gaoler who took them through the gate, whereupon they all separated and ran, making for a fixed meeting point. The sentries on the walls were completely taken by surprise and when they had started firing it was getting dark and they lost sight of the prisoners.” See also André Brissaud, La dernière année de Vichy (1943–1944) (Paris: Librairie Académique Perrin, 1965), 587.
“The message was passed”: Philippe de Vomécourt, Who Lived to See the Day: France in Arms, 1940–1945 (London: Hutchinson, 1961), 150.
“fumed over everything”: Walters, Moondrop to Gascony, 73.
He told Walters the guides were leaving: Ibid., 75.
“a charming newcomer”: Vomécourt, Who Lived to See the Day, 150–51.
“For a few days”: Ibid., 152.
they would not have made it: BNA, HS 6/583. Walters wrote in her “Report on Mission in France” of September 18, 1944, for SOE: “I also accompanied the escapees from the prison of Eysses (Lot et Garonne) to their escape line contacts and a number of people pursued by the Gestapo, and a few allied air crews.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN: JOHN’S COUSIN
“Europe was not yet ablaze”: Maurice Buckmaster, They Fought Alone: The True Story of SOE’s Agents in Wartime France (1958; repr., Biteback Publishing, 2014), 101.
“between the guardroom”: IWM, J. V. Overton Fuller Collection, Box 8, File 2, letter, John Starr to Jean Overton Fuller, May 26, 1953.
“Had the three managed”: BNA, HS 9/836/5, “A Report About Captain John Starr (by Kieffer).”
“After the ‘Escape’”: IWM, J. V. Overton Fuller Collection, Box 8, File 2, letter, John Starr to Jean Overton Fuller, July 12, 1953.
“I knew that Millie Scherer”: Ibid., Box 6, File 7.
Holwedts, swore that Frau Scherer: BNA, KV 6/29, “NOTE OF INTERVIEW IN FRESNES PRISON WITH ROSE-MARIE HOLWEDTS, nee CORDONNIER.”
report from another prisoner: BNA, HS 9/1395/3, “Interrogation of S/Ldr Maurice Southgate @ HECTOR, 13 June 1945.”
“One day he said”: BNA, KV 6/29, “Interrogation of J.A.R. Starr, 28th and 30th May, 1945.”
Placke had turned Briault: Jean Overton Fuller, The German Penetration of SOE: France, 1941–1944 (Maidstone, UK: George Mann, 1975), 139.
“went out twice with BOB”: BNA, KV 6/29, Procès-Verbal, April 1, 1946, Joseph Pierre August Placke.
asked John to help thwart: BNA, HS 9/1186/2 and HS 9/954/2.
“He wanted to know”: Tribunal Militaire, PROCES-VERBAL, John Starr, December 17, 1947.
SOE cut communications: Fuller, The German Penetration of SOE, 139; and Jean Overton Fuller, The Starr Affair (London: Victor Gollancz, 1954), 92.
“I was present when”: BNA, WO 208/4679, “VOLUNTARY STATEMENT BY PW, ID 1424 Civ Josef Goetz, 26 June 1946.”
“STARR’s security section”: Lieutenant Colonel E. G. Boxshall, “WHEELWRIGHT Circuit,” in E. G. Boxshall and M.R.D. Foot, “Chronology of SOE Operations with the Resistance in France During World War II,” December 1960, IWM, London, 05/76/1. See also Archives de la Haute Garonne, 16 J 58.
“Le Batallion de Castelnau”: Archives départementales du Gers, 42 J 193.
“the rougher maquisards speak of her”: Raymond Escholier, Maquis de Gascogne (Geneva: Editions du Milieu du Monde, 1945), 84.
“a woman of high culture”: FNA, 72 AJ 39 I, pièce 8a, “Témoignage de M. Philippe de Gunzbourg,” 2.
“there was little danger”: BNA, HS 6/658.
“it was unlikely”: Ibid.
while cycling through: Yvonne Cormeau, IWMSA, September 2, 1984, Catalogue number 7369, www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80007171.
“The only thing”: Ibid. Although Cormeau wrote that George Starr’s eyes were gray, his SOE file stated they were brown. His son, Alfred, wrote, “My father’s eyes were described as brown, but were more of a light brown to grey, they could be quite light in certain lights and probably became lighter with age.” Alfred Starr, email to the author, June 1, 2017.
“the invisible man”: IWM, 09/11/13—16-24, Collection: Lieutenant Colonel F. C. Cammaerts, 7.
“And in their methodic way”: Cormeau, IWMSA, September 2, 1984.
“a very, very hard period”: Ibid.
a second radio operator: Boxshall, “WHEELWRIGHT Circuit.”
“most pleasant boy”: Escholier, Maquis de Gascogne, 86.
“We didn’t want them to”: “Les moulins à poudre de Toulouse: un patrimoine à conse
rver,” Fédération des Moulins de France, July 1, 2012, www.fdmf.fr/index.php/documentation/histoire/474-les-moulins-a-poudre-de-toulouse-un-patrimoine-a-conserver.
“the Boches were running madly”: BNA, HS 9/1407/1.
“it was so beautiful, Minou”: Anne-Marie Walters, Moondrop to Gascony, foreword by M.R.D. Foot, introduction and notes by David Hewson (1946; rept., Petersfield, UK: Harriman House, 2009), 116.
“a series of explosions”: Ibid.
the Gestapo broke into a meeting: Ibid., 110.
Brossolette intended to escape: Having heard the story from Vogt, SOE historian Jean Overton Fuller wrote in a letter to General de Gaulle, “As all the floors had balconies, there was no question of doubt for him that he had tried to escape and in descending from one balcony to another, and that he fell only from one balcony to a lower floor . . . Ernest climbed back upstairs, after the accident, to find this guard, and said to him in anger, ‘I suppose you were asleep when he arrived.’ The guard, who looked terrified and denied it, and as is natural declared that the prisoner threw himself out of the window with such speed and violence that he could not prevent him from committing suicide . . . [Brossolette] did not end his life by suicide.” IWM, J. V. Overton Fuller Collection, Box 6, File 6, letter to General de Gaulle, November 11, 1955.
Rabinovitch whispered to John: BNA, HS 9/1223/4.
The handsome bachelor lamented: Archives départementales du Gers, 42 J 134, Tomas Guerrero Ortega, age thirty-two, married Eva Odette Berrito, September 10, 1944.
“had thick, long black hair”: Walters, Moondrop to Gascony, 144.
“a mixture of all sorts”: George Starr, IWMSA, Recording 24613, 1978, Reel 16, www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80022295.