Tragic Heroes: The Burney Brothers of Hay at War

The stories of two very different brothers from Hay-on-Wye and the part they played in World War II. Commando Christopher Burney was parachuted into occupied France as a secret agent in 1942. Captured and tortured by the Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, he survived. His books on the experience became classics in the 1950s. Meanwhile Roger Burney, a conscientious objector while at Cambridge, became a British Naval Liaison Officer on the Free French submarine Surcouf, whose sinking with all hands in the Caribbean in 1942 remains a mystery. Roger was a good friend of Benjamin Britten’s and the composer’s famous ‘War Requiem’ is dedicated to him. This account of their lives is based on new research and uses family papers for the first time.