George Reginald Starr George Reginald Starr DSO MC ( 6 April 1904 – 2 September 1980 ) was a British mining engineer and one of the Special Operations Executive ' s best secret agents during World War II . Early life . He was born in London , one of two sons of American Alfred Demarest Starr 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 seven - 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 Mavor and Coulson Ltd , manufacturers of mining equipment . World War II . In 1940 , he was working in Liège , Belgium 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 and give the code name " Hilaire " . His brother John Renshaw Starr was also a member of the SOE . In November 1942 , shortly before German forces began their occupation of the Vichy Republic , he arrived secretly by boat on the Mediterranean coast of France . Based in Castelnau - sur - l ' Auvignon , posing as a retired Belgian mining engineer who had made a fortune in the Congo , he successfully organised a French Resistance network in the southwest corner of France , between Toulouse , Bordeaux and the Pyrenees , designated by the SOE as the ' Wheelwright Sector ' . Starr spied on the German 11th Tank Division near Bordeaux . The group he led also cut telephone and power line s and sabotaged power stations . He managed to persuade anticommunist and communist resistance member to join forces to fight the German occupiers . One of his team members was Denise Bloch . In 1944 , before the Normandy Invasion , Starr created an armed group called the " Armagnac Battalion " in Toulouse . During the invasion , they destroyed communication and transportation lines . When the SS Panzer division Das Reich tried to reinforce the German forces in Normandy , Starr ' s troops delayed it so it arrived too late to stop the landings . During the Liberation , Starr ' s group took control of the Toulouse area . When Charles de Gaulle visited the region , he got into a spirited argument with Starr and threatened to imprison him , until de Gaulle apparent changed his mind and shook Starr ' s hand . Starr was accused of the torture and brutal treatment of collaborators and prisoners by one of his couriers Anne - Marie Walters . Subsequent investigations established the truth of the accusations but the results of the investigation were hushed up . He was decorated with the Distinguished Service Order , the Military Cross , and the Croix de Guerre Avec Palme . He was also made an Officer of the Légion d ' honneur . The United States government awarded him the Medal of Freedom with Silver Bar . He finished the war with the rank of Lieutenant - Colonel . Post - war . After the war , he was sent to Essen in the Ruhr district to direct the re - opening of German coal mines . He later returned to Mavor and Coulson as managing director before retiring to live in France . Starr died in a hospital in Senlis , France in 1980 .