THE CHINA MAIL, OCTOBER 10; 1940.
CG
'HEAVEN-SENT MISSION" OF MAJOR
MAJOR ALFRED WINTLE, M.C. - "the major in the Tower" - was said at his court-martial in London to have believed that he had a "heaven-sent mission" to save the French Fleet and Air Force for the Allied cause.
It was alleged that, without authority, he tried to get a plane to take him to Bordeaux, and that, failing to get the plane, he threatened I to shoot Air' Commodore A. R. Boyle during an interview at the Air Ministry.
The air commodore, în report ing the interview to a high official of the War Office, wrote:--
known to the authorities that the major was blind in the left eye due to a Great War wound.):
When he reported to my, office, The defence declared that the he was obviously in a very un-medical authorities were deceived balanced state of mind, and said-at the second examination-not that he felt it was his mission in the first and that the major life to save the French Flect and Air Force for the use of this coun- try.
He alone could work the oracle, as he know everybody in the French Government, and they all "rcre devoted to him.
I said he would only cross lines, and make it more difficult, if he did this sort of "thing, and told him that in no circumstances whatever would I agree to his getting passage in an aircraft, and that if he felt that he had this heaven-sent mission he should get authority from the War Office, with whom he was serving..
Wintle was, as you may know, formerly attached to this de- partment (the Air Ministry).
managed to pass the reading test largely because he had memorised the figures he was expected to read, "
He had seen the reading card in the waiting-room.
Major Wintle, according to his counsel, Mr. J. D. Casswell. K.C., was "deadly keen" to get on really active service. He wanted to fight the Germans, and did not want to continue with duties which kept him out of the combat: zone.
He was brought up in France until he went to the Royal Mili- tary Academy. He could probably talk French much better than English, and had such a know- ledge of the French that they were far more. ready to impart their secrets to him than to any
I will not, go fully into the very unattractive details of our inter- view because the man was ob-man they regarded as a foreigner. viously not fully in possession of his faculties.
But I hope you will take stops to restrain the officer. invading Hendon airfield and demanding facilities to go to Bordeaux or any other place unless he has got the highest permission to do so..
I do not want to do any harm to Wintle's career, but he must be told that there are other jobs of work to be done without being regrettably rude and undisciplined to senior officers, apart from the irregularity of trying to pretend at Hendon that he had a special mission to perform in going to Bordeaux. -
Akim Tamiroff, with his customary brilliance, appears as a rugged hunter in Par- amount's "Untamed," Techni- colour drama at the Queen's
CENSUS OF FARM CONTRACTORS
Theatre. Knew 600 Officers For four years, until 1935, he was attached to the French Staff and he College as an instructor
no fewer than knew intimately 600 French officers, many of whom held imperan positions in the French Air Force.
S.
nor-
An order made by the Minis- ter of Agriculture, Mr. R. "The major", said Mr. Cass-Hudson, under the Defence Re- well, "rightly or wrongly gulations, requires every agricul- thought that he was the mantural contractor in England and who might be able to influence Wales to register with the War the French to gend
a. few Agricultural Executive Commit- squadrons to England.
tee for any county in which he "Every plane wrested from the does work. He must also give hands of the Germans and brought the committee particulars of his to England meant we had two to machinery and equipment, and the gond. There are officers who of the areas in which he think that the major, above all mally operates, and comply with other people, was in a position any directions which the
his to bring that about.'
mittee may give regarding Mr. Casswell said that after operations. The order applics to being given information while persons whose principal business Major Wintle pleaded not guilty he was doing liaison work in is that of carrying out agricul-
France by French
land to three charges:—
officers, who tural operations on
other 1.-Feigning infirmity, in pre-hád confidence in him, Major than their own. tending to a medical officer that Wintle obtained an interview with
Wintle was terribly anxious about he was suffering from defective Sir Edmund Ironside. vision in the right eye;
-Shooting Threat- Later, in making a fuller report on the interview, Air Commodore Boyle described how Major Win- the threatened to shoot him..
com-
It was "a fairly lengthy" inter-hat was going to happen if the 2-Assaulting Air Commodoreview because at that time Major Germans advanced. Boyle, and
con-
3 (as an alternative to the se- cond charge).-Committing duct to the prejudice of good or- der and military discipline.
It is alleged that he produced a pistol at the Air Ministry, and threatened to shoot himself and Air Commodore Boyle, and said words to the effect that certain
·Ministers and all officers of the R.A.F. above the rank of group- captain and most senior Army officers ought to be shot.
Air Commodore Boyle said that after he had..told Major Wintle, "I don't like this theatrical non- sense," he put the pistol. In his holster.
It was not suggested that there. was any violence,
Major-General, T.. G. G. Hay- ward, formerly military, attache in Paris, said that Major Wintle was under his orders for about three and a half years, and was an able and intelligent officer.
"There is no man I would like better by niy side if I were in a tight comer."
“Hid Bad Sight' -
The prosecution said that Ma-- jor Wintle pretended when his eyes were tested that he had very defective vision, but later. ad- mitted to Colonel Mackenzie of the War Office Medical Board that he had consciously limited his „vision” because he wanted to get out of the Army to join the French Army....:
The defence said that Major Wintia's sight was, in fact, very defective, though he had for years concealed this from tho Army authorities. • Pik
At the interview...with Colonel
·Mackenzie, when he had a reading. test, his sight was classed as “al- most normal,” in- so far as the right oye was concerned. (It was
The Illustrator.captures above the witty, flavour of Colum bia's Too Many, Husbands”- coming to the King's - Theatre, Fred MacMurray and Melvyn Douglas are the Too Many Hus: bands" and, Joan Arthur the sorely-perplexed, wife, comody, le based on the: Bomarset Maugham stago sucɑose.
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