Lieutenant-Colonel George Reginald Starr (6 April 1904 – 2 September 1980), code name Hilaire, was a British mining engineer and an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organisation in World War II. He was the organiser (leader) of the Wheelwright network in southwestern France from November 1942 until the liberation of France from Nazi German occupation in September 1944. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers. SOE agents in France allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England.

Starr's accomplishments include building up a large network of resistance groups, carrying out a number of sabotage operations in the months leading up to the Normandy invasion on 6 June 1944, rescuing from imprisonment about 50 important resistance leaders and allied airmen shot down over France, and participation as a leader in the liberation of southwestern France from German occupation. By mid-1944 Starr had more than 20 SOE agents working for him, second in numbers only to the earlier (and defunct) Prosper or Physician network.Foot, M.R.D. (1966), SOE in France, London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, pp. 147, 377–378

In the estimation of M.R.D. Foot, the official historian of the SOE, Starr was one of the half-dozen best agents of the SOE in France. He was one of only three SOE agents to be promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel, along with Richard Heslop and Francis Cammaerts.Foot, pp. 42, 311, 412. One of the French agents of the SOE, Philippe de Gunzbourg, compared Starr as a leader to Lawrence of Arabia.Hastings, Max (2014), Das Reich, St. Paul, MN: MBI Publishing Company, p. 63 Starr's wartime record was not, however, without controversy. He had a confrontation with Charles de Gaulle after the liberation of France, and one of his agents, Anne-Marie Walters, accused him of permitting the torture of captured collaborators.

Starr's brother, John Renshaw Starr, was also an SOE agent.

Early life He was born in London on 6 April 1904, one of two sons of Alfred Demarest Starr, an American bookkeeper who became a naturalised British subject, and Englishwoman Ethel Renshaw. He was a grandson of William Robert Renshaw. He was educated at Ardingly College, and at the age of 16, undertook a four-year apprenticeship as a coal-miner in Shropshire. After studying mining engineering at the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College London, he joined the Glasgow firm of Mather and Coulson Ltd, manufacturers of mining equipment. He worked in several countries in Europe installing mine equipment. Starr's second wife, Pilar Canudas Ristol, who he met in Spain, worked in Spain for SOE during World War II.Hewson, p. 22

Starr was described by his wireless operator, Yvonne Cormeau, as short in stature, in height, very nervous, a heavy cigarette smoker, and a man who took duty and responsibility seriously and would never ask a person to do anything he would not do himself. Cormeau was his closest associate, "confidante and, a few alleged, his lover."Glass, Charles (2018), They Fought Alone, New York: Penguin Press, p. 8, 103.

World War II Building a network Starr was working in Liège Province, Belgium in 1940 when the German invasion began. He escaped back to England with British forces in the Dunkirk evacuation. He joined the British Army, being commissioned on the General List. He was subsequently recruited into the Special Operations Executive (SOE) for his language skills (although his spoken French was described as "atrocious") and given the code name Hilaire.Glass, p. 26

On 3 November 1942 Starr arrived by boat with several other SOE agents at Port Miou on the Mediterranean coast of Vichy France. A few days later the Germans occupied Vichy which made SOE operations there much more dangerous than previously. Starr was scheduled to go to Lyon to work there, but the Lyon SOE network was penetrated in October 1942 and the agents arrested. SOE agent Henri Sevenet persuaded Starr to go instead to the Gascony region in southwestern France where a resistance movement was forming.Glass, pp. 10–12, 28–29 His instincts were correct. SOE networks were more secure in rural areas which had a much smaller presence of German soldiers and milice, the pro-German French militia, than large urban areas.

Starr based himself in Castelnau-sur-l'Auvignon, a rural village of 300 persons, without running water or electricity. Local leaders were sympathetic to the resistance and the nearest Germans to the village were in the city of Agen, distant. Starr posed as a retired Belgian mining engineer who had made a fortune in the Congo. From Castelnau, Starr began to build up a local resistance movement, called by SOE the Wheelwright Network (or Circuit). Starr was very conscious of security, communicating with his contacts only through couriers or the spoken word, never putting words to paper, and building up his network one trusted associate at a time. In January 1943, the SOE in London parachuted weapons and explosives into Castelnau. They were hidden in a medieval dungeon beneath the church in the village. Starr's ability to call on the United Kingdom to provide weapons made him a power among the nascent rural resistance organisations called maquis (whose members were called maquisards). Also, in January 1943, Starr borrowed a wireless operator from another network to facilitate communication with SOE in London.Glass, pp. 39–54, 56–57

These initial successes aside, in spring 1943, seemingly forgotten by SOE headquarters in London, Starr was suffering from a skin disease probably caused by stress and contemplating failure and the abandonment of his mission. He sent Denise Bloch, an SOE agent on the run from another part of France, to Spain and hence to England with a written report (violating his own rule against written communication) requesting money and a wireless operator of his own. London's immediate answer was to send an aeroplane to hover over Castelnau to communicate with Starr by short-range S-Phone to determine that he was still alive. Starr affirmed his existence by greeting the pilot with a string of expletives and finally got attention from London. It was soon "raining containers" full of arms and equipment for the maquis.Glass, pp. 72–79 Starr's SOE team would expand to include explosives expert Claude Arnault, wireless operator Yvonne Cormeau, and courier Anne-Marie Walters.

All did not go smoothly, however, in the fractious world of the French Resistance. Starr had setbacks, rivals and enemies, some of whom he managed to marginalise. The Germans arrested several of his trusted associates.Glass, pp. 114–118, 128–133 Starr was accused of being a "warlord," a law unto himself, and independent of the French Resistance to the German occupation.Gildea, Robert (2015), Fighters in the Shadows, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 363

Security M.R.D Foot said that the motto of every successful secret agent was "dubito, ergo sum" ("I doubt, therefore I survive.") and Starr is on a short list of agents who survived by paying careful attention to security.Foot, p. 311 Starr's caution extended to the people he worked with. On the boat which brought him to France in 1942 he complained about being "in charge of three bloody women," Marie-Thérèse Le Chêne, Mary Katherine Herbert, and Odette Sansom - all SOE agents. He took a special dislike to Sansom, who would become one of the most honoured SOE agents. In December 1942, he was suspicious of another SOE agent, Denise Bloch, who was fleeing from the Gestapo. He initially thought her to be a nuisance and contemplated her "liquidation," but learned to trust her, sending her back to the United Kingdom with an appeal for SOE assistance to his network. Starr also broke with Henri Sevenet, the Frenchman who had brought him to southwestern France and helped him become established.Glass, Charles (2018), They Fought Alone New York: Penquin Press, pp 10–11, 46–48 Among his complaints about his courier, Anne-Marie Walters, was that she wore "high Paris fashion," thus violating his principle of being inconspicuous.Hastings, Max (2013), Das Reich, Minneapolis: Zenith Press, p. 66

Sabotage The maquisards and their leaders wanted to begin harassing Germans as resistance forces were doing elsewhere in France.Glass, 133–134 In December 1943 Starr requested and received permission from SOE headquarters to begin attacking the Gestapo and railroads in his region. On New Year's Eve 1943, Starr reported that the maquisards he had trained had destroyed more than 300 locomotives by carefully placing explosives on the engines.Glass, 133–134, 141

The National Gunpowder Factory near the city of Toulouse was a high priority for destruction by the allies. However, a daylight bombing raid by the Royal Air Force would kill many of the 6,000 French workers at the factory. London asked Starr to try to destroy the factory as an alternative to bombing. In March 1944 Claude Arnault and Anne-Marie Walters smuggled explosives to Toulouse. On 28 March, Arnault sneaked into the plant at night, placed explosives, and destroyed 30 electric motors out of 31 in the 'factory which were used to grind gunpowder. The factory was out of operation for six weeks.Glass, pp. 155–156

In April and May 1944, the resistance carried out a number of additional sabotage operations against factories and railroads, including a factory near Lourdes which made parts for aeroplanes and armoured vehicles. Arnault repeated his earlier success by sneaking into the factory at night along with three other men and destroying machinery with explosives.Glass, pp. 165–167

Sabotage successes notwithstanding, the French resistance was impatient in the early months of 1944. The French were beginning to lose confidence that the allies would ever invade France and liberate the country from German occupation. The joke circulated that "the English will fight to the last Frenchman."Glass, p. 154

Battle of Castelnau

With the Normandy Invasion on 6 June 1944, the SOE wanted the maquisards to convert from being saboteurs to armed fighters directly contesting German forces. Starr began distributing arms to resistance groups. Starr collected 300 men, one-half French and one-half Spanish, at Castelnau sur l'Auvignon and prepared to begin an armed uprising against the Germans. The Spaniards in Starr's forces were former members of the Spanish Republican Army who had fled to France after their defeat in the Spanish Civil War. Many of them were communists. Starr was one of only a few SOE agents who was able to persuade the feuding communists and non-communists to join together to form a single resistance force.Foot, p. 138Gildea, p. 363Glass, p. 171

However, the Germans learned that Castelnau was Starr's base and on 21 June an estimated 1,500 soldiers of the German army attacked. Nineteen of the maquisards were killed and the Germans captured the village. A rear guard blew up the explosives left behind during the retreat, destroying most of the village. The Germans completed the destruction. Starr and his surviving maquisards retreated all the way to the hamlet of Lannemaignan, west of Castelnau. Another eleven maquisards died during the retreat. On 2 July, the Germans attacked Lannemaignan with artillery and bombers. Still on the run, Starr led the maquisards south to the town of Panjas where he joined forces with his friend, the French resistance leader Maurice Parisot. Starr's men became part of the Armagnac Battalion with Parisot as the commander. Starr became his adviser.Escott, Beryl E. (2010), The Heroines of SOE, Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, pp. 138–139Glass, pp. 192–196, 200

Armagnac Battalion