The Twins: The SOE's Brothers of Vengeance

By Peter Jacobs

December 1941. After setting up one of the first resistance organisations in Vichy France and escaping over the Pyrenees into Spain, brothers Henry and Alfred Newton received devastating news. The SS AVOCETA, carrying their parents, wives and children to the safety of Britain, had been torpedoed by a German U-boat. All of their family were dead. From that moment on, the Newton brothers were consumed by revenge. Recruited by SOE, and known to everyone simply as the Twins, they returned to France and waged their own personal war against the Nazis. For nine months they lived on the edge before they were betrayed, and the net finally closed. They were caught by the Gestapo and tortured at the hands of Klaus Barbie, known as the Butcher of Lyon, before being taken to the dreaded Buchenwald concentration camp. For the first time in over sixty years, acclaimed historian Peter Jacobs reveals the full story of Henry and Alfred Newton. Drawing on personal archives and new research, The Twins is a dramatic tale of courage steeped in vengeance – and of the bonds of brotherhood in the face of hell on earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Apr 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780750995290

Peter Jacobs

Born in Southampton in 1958, Peter Jacobs served in the Royal Air Force for thirty-seven years as an air defence navigator on the F4 Phantom and Tornado F3, after which he completed staff tours at HQ 11 Group, HQ Strike Command, the Ministry of Defence and the RAF College Cranwell. A keen military historian, he has written several books on the RAF, as well as on other subjects of Second World War military history. He lives in Lincoln.