Background
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 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 Limited, manufacturers of mining equipment. 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. 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.
Starr spied on the German 11th Tank Division near Bordeaux. The group he led also cut telephone and power lines 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 Steamship 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 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. 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.