Joe Saward's 18-year journey began with a casual conversation about two of his keen personal interests: Formula One racing and spies.
It ended this year with the publishing of his book, The Grand Prix Saboteurs, which weaves a fascinating tale of racing drivers, covert operations and ruthless treachery so incredible that many might believe it's a work of fiction.
Saward began researching these long-lost exploits in 1988 after his editor at Autosport magazine, Quentin Spurring, offered him an avenue to combine his love of espionage stories with his career as a F1 correspondent.
"He mentioned that I should look into 'W Williams' because he knew that he had something to do with spies, but he did not know any more: At the time people did not even know Williams' real name," said Saward who now runs the influential racing website http://www.grandprix.com.
"I felt very strongly that the men deserved to be recognized for what they tried to achieve, as they had received no recognition at all."
Early on, Saward found a reference to a former racing driver called Charles Grover-Williams in a book about the Special Operations Executive, which was set up by the British during the Second World War. The chase was on.
SOE agents helped resistance movements wreak havoc behind German lines during the Second World War. The three grand prix drivers in Saward's book played key roles in organizing agent cells and supplying the French resistance with arms and explosives.
Grover-Williams, who won the first Monaco Grand Prix in 1929, joined the army when war broke out and served as a chauffeur until he was recruited by the SOE about two years into the war.
Looking for men to help the cause, Grover-Williams approached former racing rival, Robert Benoist, a member of the Rothschild family who had served as a fighter pilot in the First World War. Benoist had won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1937 with co-driver Jean-Pierre Wimille, the third racer to join the fight.
It would be the equivalent of modern racers Damon Hill, Alain Prost and Olivier Panis deciding to follow their troops to war in a time of crisis.
While few could imagine recent generations of coddled F1 stars even considering such a decision, the 1930s racing trio willingly put themselves in grave danger.
"The world has changed, but hopefully we will never have to go through such things again," Saward explained. "The only difference these days is that television has made the faces of the famous more famous."
Although the events in the book happened more than 60 years ago, finding the truth wasn't exactly easy.
All the information related to SOE operations was classified and, to make matters worse, it was not covered by the British government rules concerning public release of information, usually after 30 or 50 years.
So Saward spent much of the past 20 years trying to cut through red tape to get the story. And while there were ways to gather some information, the process in place made the results unreliable at best.
"The [British government's] Foreign Office allowed researchers to ask questions, which they would answer, but I was not allowed to see the documents," Saward said. "The interesting thing was that when the man I was dealing with changed, I got different answers."
Although the British government was essentially involved in state-sponsored terrorism during the war, the motivation for keeping the identities and fates of these agents secret had more to do with their families than embarrassment for distasteful acts in times of conflict.
"The reason they were hesitant was that there were relatives of people who were still alive who might be upset by the details. For example, one does not want a family member reading about torture or a relative who was pushed into a crematorium oven while still alive," Saward concluded.
"In the end, I believe they concluded that enough time had passed. The truth is that they probably did not know that they had such a great story."
Unfortunately for the racers turned saboteurs, the story didn't end well.
Of the three, only Wimille survived the war. He died in a racing accident in 1949. The other two were captured after being betrayed in June, 1943, by Benoist's brother. While Robert Benoist escaped and made it to England, he was recaptured when he returned to France a year later.
Grover-Williams was executed with a number of other SOE agents in early 1945 after being held for about 18 months at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Benoist suffered a similar fate about five months earlier at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
There were rumours that Grover-Williams survived the war, but after Grand Prix Saboteurs was published Saward found a statement from a German Schutzstaffel (SS) sergeant in the KGB archives in Moscow that confirmed his death.
"The confirmation of Grover's death rather than the romantic idea that he might have lived on was an important thing," Saward said.
"I think the basis of the story has been told but I would love to know more names as there were probably more drivers, such as [Frenchman and Le Mans racer] Robert Mazaud involved."
Where to get it
The Grand Prix Saboteurs
By Joe Saward
Paperback: 364 pages
Publisher: Morienval Press
Price: $24.99 (U.S.)
Order direct: http://www.morienval.com
