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| Click Here For Full Artist Print Indexes | Aviation History Archive |
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Aviation Art Prints  Pilot Signatures World War Two Signatures UK and Commonwealth M  Millar, George |
Captain George Millar, D.S.O., M.C. | Captain George Millar, D.S.O., M.C. George Reid Millar, was born on September 19 1910 near Glasgow, Scotland. In June 1941 Millar landed in Egypt with the 1st Battalion the Rifle Brigade and crossed Libya to the Tripolitanian frontier. His scout platoon was captured by the Germans in January 1942 while on patrolling duties and he was taken to Rommels HQ. After interrogation, he met Rommel who told him that he had no option but to hand him over to the Italians. Millar was sent to Campo 66 at Capua before being transferred to a Carthusian monastery at Padula. He made several attempts to escape, and was sent to Campo 5 at Gavi, a high-security PoW camp where Colonel David Stirling was a fellow inmate. In September 1943 and after the Italian Armistice George Millar along with other PoWs were loaded into trucks and moved north. Shortly after a change of trains in Germany, he and a burly comrade, Wally Binns, went to the lavatory together - Millar crawling between Binnss legs to escape detection. Once inside, Binns tore out the window frame and both men threw themselves out. Millar and Binns went to Munich, where they made contact with some Frenchmen who were doing forced labour at the main railway station. They concealed Millar and Binns in a goods train for about 60 hours until they were approaching Strasbourg. in the marshalling yards the two men jumped out of the train. In Strasbourg, he made contact with the local escape organisation, which supplied him with false papers in the name of Georges Millard, a house-painter. He lived in a cafe among the underworld until he was smuggled across the border into France, where he made his way to Paris and then Lyon, where there was a strong resistance movement. Millar worked in a black market restaurant in Lyon as a deaf and dumb waiter until, at the end of November, he moved to Annecy, where he lived in a maison de rendezvous. He then hid up in a safe house at Perpignan and, after two failed attempts, in December 1943 he crossed the Pyrenees with a number of American airmen and reached Barcelona. After returning to England, he was subjected to a rigorous de-briefing for three days by MI5 and MI9, the escape organisation. To them his escape from the middle of Germany seemed little short of miraculous, and they had to satisfy themselves that the Germans had not captured him and he was a double agent. He was awarded the MC. Parachuted secretly into France as an SOE agent on 1st June 1944. He was dropped north of Dijon to organise and train local Resistance groups to harass the enemy in support of the forthcoming D-Day landings in Normandy. His incredible book, Maquis, tells of their many daring exploits which included the destruction of the giant railway turn-tables on the important rail junction at Besancon. He vividly describes his day to day survival and the disruptive operations carried out on the German supply lines. He also depicts with understanding the characters of the ordinary men and women of the French Resistance who selflessly served with him to play their heroic part in the final liberation of France. Emile and his Maquis are still remembered in the quiet villages of the Ognon Valley. He died 15th January 2005.
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| Captain George Millar, D.S.O., M.C. - Signed Aviation Art Prints, Paintings and Drawings |
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