George Millar

George Millar DSO MC (September 19, 1910–January 15, 2005) was a Scotsman who was parachuted into the Besançon area of France by the SOE in 1944. After the war, he wrote a book, "Maquis" (1945), about his experiences with the French Resistance. He describes life living in the woods with the Maquis, various sabotage missions against the railway and trying to organise the villages before liberation by the Americans. He meets Paul, an American radio operator, the competing local resistance chiefs, and eventually joins the famous Boulaya.

In his second book, "Horned Pigeon," he recounts his capture by the Afrika Korps at Gazala in the Libyan desert in 1942, being moved from camp to camp after failed escape attempts before finally jumping from a moving train in Germany. He spends several months on the run in France, aided and hidden by various resistance groups and eventually walking across the Pyrenees to Spain and freedom. When being flown home from Gibraltar he realises that he will have difficulty re-integrating in Britain, and jumps at the offer to become an SOE agent.

He was Paris correspondent for the "Daily Express" before the war, his fluent (if Scottish-accented) French allowing him to travel unharmed through France and join the Maquis. He says several times in his books that his French accent was good enough to fool Germans but not Frenchmen; however, when in hiding, he is mistaken for an Alsatian.

He was awarded the "Légion d'Honneur" and "Croix de Guerre" for services to France in 1944.

References

* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-1447683,00.html Times Obituary for George Millar]