General Edward Sir Louis Spears plays only a middling role in the book I’m writing, but he is one of my favorites in the large cast that brings this story to life. Here are six reasons why:

1. He was the perfect liaison between Britain and France in two World Wars

Spears, who spent much of his childhood in France, was decorated by both the French and British armies in World War I. He knew his way around the tangles of the French government and military hierarchies every bit as well as he knew his way around the countryside. Winston Churchill asked Spears – who spoke flawless French without an accent – to be his personal liaison to French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud in the crucial days after Hitler’s Germany invaded France early in World War II. Spears later took on the challenge of shepherding General Charles de Gaulle’s often prickly liaison with Britain’s armed forces and government. Spears, a Member of Parliament, once joked that some colleagues referred to him as “the right honorable member for Paris.”

2. I simply love the picture shown above

Few of the people I'm writing about are household names, and fewer still are household faces. To help get to "know" the people I'm writing about, I look through a file of their pictures from time to time. From the cigarettes, to the decanted wine, to the attentive waiter, to the generals’ uniforms, to Spears' wry expression … this image of General Charles de Gaulle and Spears helps take me to London in 1940. (In fact, this picture was taken on 1 September, 1940).

3. His writing

In addition to the marvelous details that Spears shares about generals, admirals, ministers and at least one crazed French mistress (not his) in his books, it is a special joy to read Spears’ descriptions of his friends and foes. Every one of his character descriptions is a rollicking delight. Take, for example, the little-known Gaston Palewski, principal private secretary to Paul Reynaud:

“A man in his early forties, he was amiable but not prepossessing. Had anybody said his complexion was good, that person could hardly have escaped grave doubts being cast on his veracity. Very dark, rather short and square, a slight oiliness was common to hair, face and manner. His conversation too was well lubricated, as were his hands, which frequently shook each other in unexplained and inexplicable self-congratulation. Beady intelligent eyes peered through the wrinkles of a permanent but not unpleasant smile, over a wide, loose, full-lipped mouth. Funnily enough he fancied himself as a ladies man” (1)

4. In addition to his vivid writing about his contemporaries and their impact on history, Spears made history.

As France was about to capitulate to Germany, Spears helped General Charles de Gaulle escape from Bordeaux to London. As Spears tells the story, de Gaulle came to the airfield at Merignac to see him off the day after whispering that he expected to be arrested by the incoming French Government. As the two generals had planned, just as Spears’ plane began to taxi, the diminutive Spears pulled the 6’ 5” de Gaulle into his moving plane. Less than two months later, de Gaulle was tried in absentia and sentenced to death for treason … due in large part for to his escape to London, where he planted the seed for the new Free French movement.

5. He helped me validate my college library as a rich source of resource material.

When I first started gathering research for my book, I had a sense that the Hesburgh Library at the University of Notre Dame could be a helpful resource. To test that theory, I visited the library late one Saturday night after a football game. As a quick check I searched the almost empty 11th floor for books by or about two figures you might not expect to find in a U.S. college library – Admiral Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan of France (who is a subject for another time) and General Spears.

The library had seven Darlan books, including a well-worn paperback copy of a biography written by Alain Darlan, the Admiral’s son, published in French.

I already owned both volumes of Spears’ Assignment to Catastrophe, an engaging account of France’s fall at the beginning of World War II. Both of those books were in Notre Dame’s collection. So were his two books about his experiences in the First World War, two postwar books, and a book about Spears that I had not been aware of. The Hesburgh Library collection even included a memoir and several novels by Spears’ first wife, Mary Borden.

It was apparent that the Hesburgh Library, with its three million books, could become a valuable resource tool. It did, and eventually became my secondary-research home away from home. I realized afterwards that I could have checked the availability of those books on the library’s website, but what fun would that have been?

6. I know a small story about General Spears that no one else in the world knows.

I had not originally expected to make a research trip to the Howard Gotleib Archival Research Center at Boston University but, well … that’s a story that I will mostly save for another time. One product of the first of my two visits to the Gotleib Center was a letter that General Spears wrote to another author in which he revealed a long-held secret - his rationale for writing one of his postwar books. The letter was written in September, 1962, and the other author passed away in 2015 without mentioning the letter or the story in the three books he wrote about the two World Wars.

The secret is not a historically significant event, and it has nothing to do with the book I’m writing. But as my life goes these days, it was an incredibly exciting find, especially since I admire Spears – as well as that other author (unnamed for now) - as much as I do. I look forward to sharing that story at another time.

Thanks for reading. I wish you a safe, healthy, joyous, vaccinated, and adventure-filled 2021.