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Charles Glass

They Fought Alone: The True Story of the Starr Brothers, British Secret Agents in Nazi-Occupied France Hardcover – September 11, 2018

by Charles Glass (Author)

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“Highly detailed and fast-paced, Charles Glass’s They Fought Alone is a must-read for those whose passion is the Resistance literature of World War II.” —Alan Furst, author of A Hero of France

From the bestselling author of Americans in Paris and The Deserters, the astounding story of Britain's Special Operations Executive, one of World War II's most important secret fighting forces

As far as the public knew, Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) did not exist. After the defeat of the French Army and Britain's retreat from the Continent in June 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill created the top-secret espionage operation to "set Europe ablaze." The agents infiltrated Nazi-occupied territory, parachuting behind enemy lines and hiding in plain sight, quietly but forcefully recruiting, training, and arming local French résistants to attack the German war machine. SOE would not only change the course of the war, but the nature of combat itself. Of the many brave men and women conscripted, two Anglo-American recruits, the Starr brothers, stood out to become legendary figures to the guerillas, assassins, and saboteurs they led.

While both brothers were sent across the channel to organize against the Germans, their fates in war could hardly have been more different. Captain George Starr commanded networks of résistants in southwest France, cutting German communications, destroying weapons factories, and delaying the arrival of Nazi troops to Normandy by seventeen days after D-Day. Younger brother Lieutenant John Starr laid groundwork for resistance in the Burgundy countryside until he was betrayed, captured, tortured, and imprisoned by the Nazis in France and sent to a series of concentration camps in Germany and Austria. Feats of boldness and bravado were many, but appalling scandals, including George's supposed torture and execution of Nazis prisoners, and John's alleged collaboration with his German captors, overshadowed them all. At the war's end, Britain, France, and the United States awarded both brothers medals for heroism, and George would become one of only three among thousands of SOE operatives to achieve the rank of colonel. Yet, their battle honors did little to allay postwar allegations against them, and when they returned to England, their government accused both brothers of heinous war crimes.

Here, for the first time, is the story of one of the great clandestine organizations of World War II, and of two heroic brothers whose ordeals during and after the war challenged the accepted myths of Britain's wartime resistance in occupied France. Written with complete and unrivaled access to only recently declassified documents from Britain's SOE files, French archives, family letters, diaries, and court records, along with interviews from surviving wartime Resistance fighters, They Fought Alone is a real-life thriller. Renowned journalist and war correspondent Charles Glass exposes a dramatic tale of spies, sabotage, and the daring men and women who risked everything to change the course of World War II.

Print length

336 pages
Language:

English
Publisher

Penguin Press
Publication date

September 11, 2018
Dimensions

6.4 x 1.1 x 9.53 inches
ISBN-10

1594206171
ISBN-13

978-1594206177
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A lively account …. the work sheds lights on how British intelligence perilously worked with the French.” — Library Journal

“Charles Glass....uses his considerable research and storytelling skills to uncover the little-known story of SOE (Special Operations Executive) agents George and John Starr....While They Fought Alone may read like a thriller, the enormous toll that the war took on George and John Starr is palpable. As we approach the 75th anniversary of D-Day in 2019, this book is a timely reminder of what it took to defeat tyranny.” — Bookpage

“Glass’s vividly written work adds an important chapter to the story of the Resistance.” – Publishers Weekly

“A fresh, detailed take on the patriotic legend of anti-Nazi insurgency….A well-rendered historical account emphasizing the moral complexities of unorthodox warfare.” — Kirkus

“Highly detailed and fast-paced, Charles Glass’s They Fought Alone is a must-read for those whose passion is the Resistance literature of World War II.” —Alan Furst, author of A Hero of France

“A fascinating, gripping account of two controversial secret agents, brothers who maneuvered with great cunning and managed to survive behind the lines in Nazi occupied France.” —Alex Kershaw, author of Avenue of Spies and The Liberator

About the Author

Charles Glass was the Chief Middle East Correspondent for ABC News from 1983 to 1993 and has covered wars in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. His writings appear in Harper's Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The London Review of Books, The Independent, and The Spectator. He is the author of Tribes with Flags, The Tribes Triumphant, Money for Old Rope, The Northern Front, Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation, and The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II.

Product details

Publisher : Penguin Press; 1st Edition (September 11, 2018)
Language: : English
Hardcover : 336 pages
ISBN-10 : 1594206171
ISBN-13 : 978-1594206177
Item Weight : 1.35 pounds
Dimensions : 6.4 x 1.1 x 9.53 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #379,526 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #403 in Espionage True Accounts
- #834 in French History (Books)
- #871 in England History

Customer Reviews:
39 ratings

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3 star		12%
2 star		6%
1 star		3%

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Michael E. Tigar

Riveting writing, exciting history, relevant to today

Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2018

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Charles Glass is a journalist, historian and social commentator whose writing I have enjoyed for years. As it happens, I have also written, studied and taught about events related to the French World War II Resistance. I found when I first began teaching as a visiting professor in France that there is a pervasive French mythology about the Resistance. Most Americans are dimly aware, if at all, of what the Resistance was all about. This exciting, well-written story centers on two British-American secret agents who fought in the Resistance from the beginning of the war. Intrigues, betrayals, sabotage and rare courage: Charles Glass carries us along the path of this story. The Starr Brothers' demonstrated not only that martial courage that they shared with so many who fought the Nazis. Theirs was also that rarer quality -- the social courage of which William James spoke -- of deciding to confront a powerful social evil and to risk their lives every day in doing so. So this is not only a story more compelling than any of the robust fictional accounts of the War; it gives us an example that we need today about resisting the evils of intolerance. You may buy this book for the story., but you will find in it a dividend of relevance to today,.

3 people found this helpful

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A R

Astonishing WWII story with a riveting subtext of ethical complexity and scandal

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2018

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The tableau is that of Alan Furst but this is important and thrilling history. I read it in two nights.
Glass is an astonishing historical researcher and I confess I can't understand how he gathered all this.
One of these two heroic brothers was captured and tortured by the Nazis. The other was accused of torturing Nazi prisoners.

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R. Cobb

good story

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2019

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amazing brothers

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Maka

‘They Fought Alone’ a movie worthy well written tale!

Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2018

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Great read! Fascinating material. The stuff of a movie.

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Another “behind the lines” spy story !

Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2018

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

Glass’ earlier “Americans in Paris” (2011) was an informative read, making a contribution to the history of Paris during WW2. His latest book recounts the adventures of two brothers, part of British SOE intelligence, who land in occupied France to covertly recruit French Resistance’ operatives. The drama-less book seems like a “Roll Call for spies,” listing names, too many names, and while well researched, this purported real life thriller is dull, it drags and fails to excite this reader.

The book market is awash with WW2 “behind the lines” spy histories, Ben McIntyre is an author who has successfully mined the British spy genre. If the thrill seeking reader seeks Resistance’ drama, Alan Furst’s superb fiction conveys the fear of the jack boots up the stairs, along the hallway and ending with the dreaded knock on the door. Fiction can be better entertainment than a heavy slog of facts.

3 people found this helpful

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Jeffrey Phillips

Well Researched look at the SOE and Resistance in WW2

Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2018

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

While nominally a biography of the Starr brothers, this book does a great job of setting out some of the challenges of the French resistance to the Nazis in World War 2 and the support the resistance received from the English and eventually the Americans. The Starr brothers were both introduced into France as spies to help encourage and support the local French resistance. One was located in north eastern France, the other in southwestern France. What is disheartening is how easy it was for the Germans to turn the French resistance and to fool the English by using the covert radios to send messages back to England. Dozens of espionage agents and millions of dollars of equipment were dropped into German hands.

However, the resistance did acquit itself well during and after D-Day, fighting better-armed Nazi soldiers and delaying the movement of a major tank group toward Normandy. The bravery of the resistance is amazing to read about. I wish the author had spent a bit more time on the divisions among the various French resistance groups, between the die hard communists, the followers of De Gaule and others. This lead to real divisions after the war.

The two brothers were very interesting and remind me a lot of other famous British soldiers like Ord Wingate or Sir David Stirling, or perhaps Lawrence of Arabia. They did not bend to traditional military doctrine or thinking but were very successful in small unit operations.

The book is a bit difficult to get started with because it discusses many operations and operative teams in France that can be a bit overwhelming. As time goes by the author settles in and does a good job of describing the work the resistance did and how the Starr brothers contributed.

2 people found this helpful

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Kevin Martin

Modern account of contentious SOE agents war records

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 16, 2019

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I have not heard of, or read any books by, the author Charles Glass, but have read a great number of books on the subject of SOE, which drew me to this book. In the acknowledgements at the end, it highlighted that Glass had started down the road to writing about Tony Brooks, only to find that Mark Seaman had beat him to it, who then pointed him in the direction of the Starr brothers. Seaman's book was a masterclass of research, empathy to the principal and balanced writing. Sadly, I do not feel the same about this book. Seaman had the benefit of first-hand papers of Brooks, whereas both Starr brothers were enmeshed in significant controversy after their war was over, that it was probably very difficult to find unbiased testimony to compile a balance account, which gave me greatest discomfort in reading this book. it was well researched, but I found that he introduced a great many people, that never reappeared later in the accounts, thereby guilty to the charge of confusing the central story. Although the two principals died in 1980 and 1996, there was little on their lives after their two court martials, that it implied there was little to tell, and I sensed a lack of empathy with the principals, but 'merely' a desire to play a neutral position. Many modern SOE books like to take a revisionist approach to what we might have done in their place using 21st Century optics, Glass never steps into this controversy.

Picking up on some minor aspects of the book;
- amusingly he gave great detail on the first attempted parachutage to Wheelwright, which never completed, but months later when the first successful one did, it merited only a brief paragraph. It contributed to a suspicion that much of this book was derived from SOE action reports, or firsthand French resistants war biographies.
- i noted that he relied upon a book by Buckmaster, that MRD Foot cites as containing 'errors in places'.
- I thought the action reports of the two agents quite light in places, giving me a feeling that there was a degree of padding on the subject of their actual contributions. George Starr's definitely picked up, as D-Day passed, and all the French resistants accounts corroborated the story. In the early and middle years of the war when victory was far from certain, it's certainly the case that anti-German resistance was limited, for fear of punitive reprisals.
- I found no explanation by the author to the irrational actions of George Starr to some of his colleagues quite unusual. Glass just let his opinion of Walters and Rouneau hang out there, along with whether he was having affairs with Walters, Cormeau and Robert.
- I think that Jean Overton Fuller is always portrayed as a 'marmite' character, when quoted in her very detailed and specific areas of interests within SOE. Glass carefully hedges round her contributions, not declaring any taste preference.

It was all a little too 'bitty' for my total enjoyment, but for sure it added to the very full subject of SOE agents stories, and could not offend. I fear I am going to have to pay some serious money, and buy the JOF books to understand these earlier authoritative accounts.