Blood Brothers

The title of this book is, of course, overstatement. Brothers George and John Starr were agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the British espionage service formed in 1940 to organize and assist resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. Hyperbole aside, They Fought Alone is often engrossing (and sometimes peeving) and raises intriguing questions about the effectiveness and morality of the Starrs’—and SOE’s—activities.

George and John Starr were living in Belgium and France, respectively, when the war broke out, and both joined the British army. After the Wehrmacht overran most of Western Europe, the bilingual brothers were recruited and trained by the SOE, then dispatched to France to help organize the Resistance, sabotage German infrastructure and arrange air drops of supplies and arms.

George was assigned to southwest France. Posing as a retired Belgian engineer, he was able to forge résistants of disparate loyalties into a unified fighting force. During the D-Day landings in Normandy his guerrillas destroyed infrastructure, delayed the crack SS panzer division Das Reich from reaching the vulnerable beachhead and even seized a cutting-edge Heinkel He 177 A-5 bomber. Unfortunately, despite his accrued honors and promotions, George fell under a cloud when one of his couriers accused him of torturing and murdering two captured Gestapo agents. His superiors buried the results of a subsequent investigation.