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They Fought Alone: The True Story of the Starr Brothers, British Secret Agents in Nazi-Occupied France

Page 37

by Charles Glass


  “I said I did not know”: BNA, HS 9/1407/1, “Court of Enquiry re Lt. Col. G.R. STARR (SOE), Feb. 1945.” Quotes from the following two pages are all drawn from this trial transcript.

  George and his fourteen fellow officers: Ibid. The file, marked PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL, 20TH JANUARY 1945, provided this list of the officers who “dined in the Mess on the occasion of Colonel Starr’s visit on October 30th and listened to his talk afterwards”: Lt. Col. S.H.C. Woolrych, Intelligence Corps; Major P.L.A. Follis, Intelligence Corps; Major H. S. Hunt, King’s Royal Rifle Corps; Major R. H. Angelo, Intelligence Corps; Captain C. C. Howard, General List; Captain R.J.L. Steward, Intelligence Corps; Captain P. B. Whittaker, Royal Artillery; Captain J. H. Walker, East Lancashire Regiment; Captain J. D. Taylor, Royal Artillery; Captain J. M. Lonsdale, Intelligence Corps; Captain H.R.F. Burr, Intelligence Corps; Captain F. Lofts, General List; Captain F. W. Rhodes, Pioneer Corps; and Lt. V[iolet] Dundas, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. The list does not include the Captain Harris to whom Starr referred.

  “They didn’t know me”: George Starr, IWMSA, Reel 5.

  “The thin man”: Alfred Starr, email to the author, August 22, 2016.

  “I have formed the impression”: BNA, HS 9/1407/1.

  “carefully investigated the charges”: BNA, HS 9/1407/1, letter from Colonel Buckmaster to AD/E, December 30, 1944.

  “Unless this is done”: Ibid., letter, “Personal and Confidential, To: AD/E [Mockler-Ferryman] From: A/CD [Gubbins], 5 January 1945.”

  “an unreliable witness”: Ibid., letter, “Personal and Confidential, To: AD/E [Mockler-Ferryman], From: Col. Buckmaster, 8 January 1945.”

  “Well, I asked for it”: George Starr, IWMSA, Reel 3.

  Major Frank Soskice: Frank Soskice, a career barrister, became solicitor general and home secretary in postwar British Labour Party governments.

  “investigate the conduct”: BNA, HS 9/1407/1, “Court of Enquiry re Lt. Col. G.R. STARR (SOE), Feb. 1945.”

  Monday morning, February 5, 1945: Ibid. The court of inquiry produced 213 handwritten pages of evidence and testimony, including Starr’s sworn statement, but pages 18 to 172 of the official transcript went missing from government files. Court testimony in the rest of this chapter is from the surviving pages in this file. The handwritten transcript, taken in haste while witnesses testified, contains spelling and punctuation errors. I have corrected these, but made no other changes to the original.

  “Mary [sic] Walters came”: George Starr, IWMSA, Reel 20. Jeanne Robert, although she was in England during the events discussed in the court of inquiry, knew of the allegations. Seventy years later, she defended Starr: “Oh, no. I don’t believe it.”

  “Fearing that summary justice”: Jeanne Robert to the author, January 24, 2014: “The principal collaborator was a notaire, Rizon, Maître Rizon. Collaborator at heart, he was the first to receive the Legion of Honor in Condom. His brother was with de Gaulle, so there you go.”

  “On arriving at the camp”: BNA, WO 311/933, “Name of Source: J.A.R. STARR, Date of Capture: 18th July 1943.”

  “During my 11 months there”: BNA, KV 6/29, “Rough Report by Capt. J.A.R. STARR, dictated to C.S.M. Goddard at Stn. XXVII, commencing 9 May 45.”

  “I’m going to see Oncle George”: Ethel Starr Lagier, email to the author, November 8, 2016.

  “some quite amusing things”: Jean Overton Fuller, The Starr Affair (London: Victor Gollancz, 1954), 136.

  “NOTE ON CAPTAIN J.A. STARR’S”: BNA, HS 9/1406/8.

  “When we got back”: Fuller, The Starr Affair, 135.

  were “extremely critical”: BNA, HS 9/1406/8, “NOTE ON CAPTAIN J.A. STARR’S INTERROGATION.”

  “The brothers had been operating”: Ibid., “Interrogation of the NEWTON Brothers dated 2nd May 1945.”

  “Asked his opinion”: Ibid., “EVIDENCE OF ARRESTED AGENTS WHO SAW STARR AT AVENUE FOCH.”

  “Devoted to the German cause”: BNA, HS 9/1406/8, “STATEMENT MADE BY PIERRE BONY OF THE RUE LAURISTON GANG IN PARIS.”

  “When he [John Starr] got to Paris”: Ibid., “STATEMENT MADE BY MICHEL BOUILLON TO LT. COL. WARDEN IN PARIS.”

  “She was particularly bitter”: Ibid., memo to Commander Senter, RNVR, London from Lt. Col. Warden Paris, April 21, 1945. See also BNA, KV 6/29, “NOTE OF INTERVIEW IN FRESNES PRISON WITH ROSE-MARIE HOLWEDTS, nee CORDONNIER.”

  “Many thanks for your letter”: BNA, HS 9/1406/8, letter, E.J.P. Cussen to Lt. Col. T. G. Roche, July 4, 1945.

  “he let the side down”: Fuller, The Starr Affair, 144.

  “suffered appalling treatment”: Commons Sitting, June 5, 1967, Hansard, vol. 747, cc753–62, accessed online at Hansard, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1967/jun/05/special-operations-executive-mr-alfred.

  Krupp family, arms makers: William Manchester, The Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty That Armed Germany at War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964), 701.

  “was responsible for running”: Yvette Pitt, email to the author, November 8, 2016.

  “My Dear Georgina”: Letter provided to the author by Alfred Starr.

  George wrote another letter: IWM, J. V. Overton Fuller Collection, Box 8, File 2, letter, John Starr to Jean Overton Fuller, September 29, 1953.

  Special Operations Branch: Sanchia Berg, “Churchill’s Secret Army Lived On,” BBC, December 13, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/today/hi/today/newsid_7780000/7780476.stm.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: STARRS ON TRIAL

  “In no other department of war”: Maurice Buckmaster, They Fought Alone: The True Story of SOE’s Agents in Wartime France (1958; repr., Biteback Publishing, 2014), 249.

  “At Nuremberg the Defendants”: Anthony M. Webb, ed., Trial of Wolfgang Zeuss et al. (The Natzweiler Trial), foreword by Sir Hartley Shawcross (London: William Hodge, 1949), 13.

  “I had to obey”: BNA, WO 235/560, “Statement of Hans Kieffer, 29 November 1946.”

  attest to Kieffer’s humane treatment: IWM, J. V. Overton Fuller Collection, Box 8, File 2, letter, John Starr to Jean Overton Fuller, April 4, 1954.

  where Allied bombardment: OSS Numbered Bulletins, MR 12, Section 2, June, July, August 1943, OSS Official Dispatch, Stockholm, “Germany: Air Bombardment and Morale,” Declassified, CIA 006687, April 3, 1975.

  “I know the accused Kieffer”: BNA, WO 235/560, “SYNOPSIS OF CASE [Noailles Case] Being concerned near NOAILLES, OISE, FRANCE on or about 9 August 1944.”

  “The court martial”: Serge Vaculik, Air Commando (New York: Dutton, 1955), 301.

  The court commuted: BNA, WO 235/560, “SYNOPSIS OF CASE [Noailles Case] Being concerned near NOAILLES, OISE, FRANCE on or about 9 August 1944.” SD driver Fritz Hildemann, who had been unaware of the purpose of the operation until a moment before the firing squad fired, was sentenced to five years.

  “was completely all right”: Tribunal Militaire, PROCES-VERBAL, Léon Jega, Inspecteur de Police à la Direction de la Surveillance Territoire, Paris, 13 rue des Saussaies. Interrogation of Josef Pierre Auguste Placke, age forty-nine, prisoner of war, April 1, 1966.

  “It was he”: Ibid., PROCES-VERBAL, René GOUILLARD, Commissaire de Police à la Direction de la Service de la Surveillance Territoire, 13 rue des Saussaies. Josef Gotz [sic].

  “I never worked for Goetz”: Ibid., PROCES-VERBAL, René GOUILLARD, Commissaire de Police à la Direction de la Service de la Surveillance Territoire, 13 rue des Saussaies. John Starr.

  “a tour of inspection”: Ibid., PROCES-VERBAL, Werner Ruhl [sic], January 18, 1946.

  “Following our retreat”: IWM, J. V. Overton Fuller Collection, Box 8, File 2, letter, Ernest Vogt to Jean Overton Fuller, September 12, 1954.

  He was working in a dairy: Jean Overton Fuller, The German Penetration of SOE: France, 1941–1944 (Maidstone, UK: George Mann, 1975), 157. See also Tribunal Militaire, letter, A. P.
Le Man, Le Chef d’Escadrons, to Monsieur le Chef d’Escadrons de ROUGEMENT, London, April 13, 1948.

  “As far as I know”: Tribunal Militaire, Testimony of Ernest Vogt, June 19, 1948.

  “I, too, hope that the STARR case”: BNA, KV 6/29, “Letter, To: Miss J. Russell King, M.I.5., From: M.O.1 (S.P.) War Office, 73 Upper Berkeley Street, W.1., 28 September 1948.”

  indicted Captain John Ashford Renshaw Starr: Tribunal Militaire, letter, Le Capitaine MERCIER, Juge d’Instruction près le Tribunal Militaire Permanent de Paris à Son Excellence Monsieur L’Ambassadeur de France à Londres, Paris, 23 novembre 1949.

  maximum penalty was death: Henry Rousso, The Haunting Past: History, Memory, and Justice in Contemporary France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), xiii. See also Caroline Fournet, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity: Misconceptions in French Law and Practice (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 8.

  “tall, blond, very smart”: Jean Overton Fuller, The Starr Affair (London: Victor Gollancz, 1954), 176.

  “his conduct and morality”: Tribunal Militaire, RAPPORT, MDL Chef Commandant de Brigade, Issy-les-Moulineaux, December 23, 1948.

  Fuller wrote to John: Fuller, The Starr Affair, 145.

  “I never trusted him”: Ibid.

  “I do not deem it necessary”: Tribunal Militaire, PROCES-VERBAL DE PREMIERE COMPARUTION, STARR, John Ashford, Alias “Bob,” November 15, 1949.

  “VOGT confirms what I told you”: Ibid.

  John’s cellmates from Fresnes: Ibid., PROCES-VERBAL, Jean-Claude Comert, November 22, 1949.

  “He pretends that his services”: Ibid., letter, Le Capitaine MERCIER, Juge d’Instruction près le Tribunal Militaire Permanent de Paris à Son Excellence Monsieur l’Ambassadeur de France à Londres, Paris, 23 novembre 1949.

  “If I were to leave”: Fuller, The Starr Affair, 164.

  “to reconstruct in its location”: Tribunal Militaire, PROCES-VERBAL DE TRANSPORT, Captain Mercier, January 3, 1950.

  “Captain STARR showed us”: Ibid.

  “Starr took us into the guardroom”: Fuller, The Starr Affair, 178.

  “Why, it was you”: Ibid., 179.

  “did not recognize Captain STARR”: Tribunal Militaire, PROCES-VERBAL DE TRANSPORT, Captain Mercier, January 3, 1950.

  “I do believe”: Fuller, The Starr Affair, 190.

  “We could not afford”: Buckmaster, They Fought Alone, 68.

  “You have quite enough”: IWM, J. V. Overton Fuller Collection J, Box 8, File 2, letter, John Starr to Jean Overton Fuller, September 29, 1953.

  French government promoted: “Décret du 25 Mars 2016 portant promotion et nomination,” Journal Officiel de la République Française, 4, in which Jeanne Robert is nominated for the Legion of Honor, www.legiondhonneur.fr/sites/default/files/promotion/lh20160327.pdf.

  She died fifteen months later: “Grande figure de la Résistance, Jeanne Robert n’est plus,” La Dépêche, September 8, 2017, www.ladepeche.fr/article/2017/09/08/2641446-grande-figure-de-la-resistance-jeanne-robert-n-est-plus.html.

  CREDITS

  1: Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain. 1942. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USW33–019093-C

  2: Charles de Gaulle, half-length portrait. 1942. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62–96046

  3: Pétain shakes hand with Hitler. 1940. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J28036, via Wikimedia Commons

  4, 5, 6, and 7: Courtesy of Alfred Starr

  8 and 9: Courtesy of the author

  10: Vera Atkins, WAAF squadron officer. 1946. United Kingdom Government, via Wikimedia Commons

  11: Lieutenant Odette Marie-Céline Sansom, George Cross, MBE. 1939–1945. Imperial War Museum, HALLOWES G M (MR), HU 3213

  12: All rights reserved, Musée départemental de la Résistance et de la Déportation de Lorris

  13 and 14: Courtesy of Anne Whiteside

  15: Yvonne Cormeau. 1941–1945. Imperial War Museum, CORMEAU Y (MRS), HU 47367

  16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22: Courtesy of Yvette Pitt

  23: Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Comert

  24, 25, and 26: Courtesy of Archives départementales du Gers

  27 (left): Photograph of Denise Bloch, no known author, via Wikimedia Commons

  28 (right): Retrieved from http://www.specialforcesroh.com/gallery.php?do=view_image&id=28453&gal=gallery

  29: Captain Adolphe Rabinovitch, SOE. Imperial War Museum, SPECIAL FORCES CLUB COLLECTION, HU 98879

  30: Diana Hope Rowden. 1942. Records of Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, United Kingdom Government

  31: Produced by French government, no known source

  32: Courtesy of Alain Geay

  33 and 34: Courtesy of Ethel Starr Lagier

  35: Hon. Assistant Section Officer Noor Inayat Khan (code name Madeleine), George Cross, MiD, Croix de Guerre avec Etoile de Vermeil. Imperial War Museum, DEPARTMENT OF DOCUMENTS VC-GC FILES/CARROLL F (WING COMMANDER), HU 74868

  36: Retrieved from http://www.redcap70.net/A%20History%20of%20the%20SS%20Organisation%201924-1945.html/K/KIEFFER,%20Hans.html;

  37: Paris, Avenue Foch, Siegesparade. 1940. German Federal Archives, via Wikimedia Commons

  38 and 39: © Private Archives of Serge Ravanel, donation to AERI. Courtesy of Musée de la Resistance, via http://www.museedelaresistanceenligne.org

  40: Courtesy of Archives départementales du Gers, 42 J 385, Fonds Guy Labédan

  41 and 42: By Jean Dieuzaide, courtesy of Michel Dieuzaide

  43: SOE memorial plaque at Beaulieu, Hampshire. 2014. By Ericoides, via Wikimedia Commons

  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

  INDEX

  The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.

  AAF (U.S. Army Air Forces), 167, 201

  Abetz, Otto, 186

  Abwehr, 67

  ACROBAT circuit, 69, 88, 90, 107–8, 150, 151

  Africa, 7, 28, 44, 55, 56, 85, 128, 152, 221

  Agen, 29, 30, 32, 35–36, 43, 45–46, 52, 72, 79, 80, 92–93, 95–97, 99, 100, 115, 117, 129, 130, 146, 156, 178, 182, 184, 185

  Agence Yves Alexandre Publicité, 17, 248, 253

  Aire-sur-l’Adour, 214, 217

  Albrecht, Berty, 211

  Algeria, 28, 43, 44, 55, 81, 212–13, 218

  ALLIANCE network, 124

  Allies, 37, 55–56, 159, 167, 225

  Casablanca conference of, 55–56, 86

  D-Day and advance into France, 44, 84–86, 88, 133, 153, 154, 166–68, 169–75, 189, 190, 191, 197–98, 200, 210, 215

  French provisional government and, 229, 230

  North Africa and, 7, 28, 44, 55, 85, 128, 152

  Riviera landing of, 215

  Sicily and, 55, 88, 91, 128, 152

  Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), 171, 179, 201, 214, 215

  U.S. entry into war, 37, 199

  Alps, 69, 73

  Antibes, 24

  Argence, Jean, 104–5, 107, 264

  Armagnac Battalion, 82, 200–202, 204–7, 212, 214, 216, 217, 220, 241

  Arnault, Claude (“Néron”), 134–35, 141, 142, 144–46, 155–57, 167

  Walters and, 134–35, 142, 144–46, 155, 156, 185

  Aron, Robert, 230

  Arx, 92, 115–16

  Asher, Serge (“Serge Ravanel”), 210–11, 215, 226–27, 244

  de Gaulle and, 226, 231

  Astaffort, 184–85

  Astor, Jakie, 20, 21

  Atkins, Vera, 75–76, 97, 98, 101, 250, 253, 262, 267

  Attlee, Clement, 255

  Aubin, Raymond, 146, 147r />
  Auch, 95, 99, 113, 131, 146, 192, 213, 216, 217, 228

  Aventignan, 112

  Avenue Foch, 105, 118–19, 157–58, 160, 163, 189, 209, 210, 221–22

  Brossolette at, 157

  evacuation of, 223–24

  Faye at, 124, 126, 136–38, 140, 148, 252, 259, 263, 265–66

  John Starr at, 105–11, 118–21, 123–27, 136–40, 148–52, 160–65, 190, 191, 210, 220–21, 224, 245, 249–52, 256–67

  Khan at, 122–27, 136–40, 148, 252, 259, 262, 263, 265–66

  Rabinovitch at, 157–58

  uniforms and, 190

  Avéron-Bergelle, 200, 207, 210, 215

  Bagnères-de-Bigorre, 167

  Balachowsky, Alfred Serge, 140

  Balachowsky, Emily Morin, 140, 150, 151

  Barbie, Klaus, 119

  Bardet, Roger, 64

  BBC, 11, 52, 77, 90, 94, 154, 163, 191, 248, 260

  D-Day and, 170, 172, 174

  Beaulieu, SOE training school at, 20, 232–35, 237–39, 244

  Bégué, Georges, 3

  Belgium, 18, 21

  Bergen-Belsen, 130

  Bergerac, 196–97

  Berrito, Eva Odette, 228

  Bertaux, Pierre, 229–30

  Blasy, Paul, 96, 115

  Bletchley Park, 173

  Bloch, Denise, 46–48, 50, 52, 63, 65, 73–77, 83, 84

  George Starr and, 46–48, 73–77

  trip to Spain, 73–75

  Bloch, Robert, 173

  Bloom, Germaine Février, 49, 56–57

  Bloom, Marcus Reginald (“Urbain”; “Bishop”), 10, 49–50, 52, 56–57, 62–64, 110–11

  arrest of, 63, 66, 67–68, 73

  Bodington, Nicholas, 23, 164

  Boë, Abbé, 83, 187, 193

  Bony, Pierre, 251, 252

  Bouchou, Marius, 97, 231

  Bouillon, Michel, 110, 252

  Bourne-Patterson, R. A., 232

  Boyle, Archibald “Archie” Robert, 235

  Briault, Dr., 150

 

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