Page-60
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JUNE
1955.
IT STARTS TODAY - the story of Britain's strangest hero: WINGATE THE ENIGMA
The Chindit badge.
"A
man
genius," said Church- ill yet some who served with Wingate thought he was fanatic. Wavell hailed him as the
most brilliant soldier
HE MARCHED TO WAR WITH
A BIBLE
of the war-butAnd he ruled his men with
Wingate died frus- trated and unhappy. He left a riddle "of personality that one man now sets out to solve
I
the rod and the whip
battered and greasy old Indian topee.
WC
g
The topee which Orde Win gate had
young soldier with the Suzan Defence Force in the 1920's; as the
T was a pinpoint of leader of the Patriot Army
light at first in the which
of
blackness. jungle. and
pui Emperor Haile
the Selassie back on his throne
Ethiopia in 1941; and as the
war
by Leonard
Mosley
Jewish blood
in
Lieu fanatic and indefatigable fight- tenant Benjamin. the pilot ing man and student of of the American bomber who helped to revitalise the and put new Burma campaign flying above it on his way heart into the weary troops on
his veixa. back to his base in Assam, the unpleasantest front of the But he had something just as gave it no ·more than a war,
potent in his heart: a love at Orde Wingate, at 41. glance.
Old Testament and the dead, the dream of his life un- Jewish prophets, law-givers and soldiers whom the Bible told: and when he arrived in Pale stine for the first time
He was, in any case, busy with his job of taking his craft through the fierce" electrical storm flickering dangerously through the tropical sky, a
For a minute or two.
over, there was do
fullled.
THE
-
The follower
WELK
the
grounds, banned him from entering Palestine and ordered him to be turbed back should he attempt to cross its frontiers.
So let me begin to tell the story of this great soldier, this brave man, this strange, sad, perplexing Orde Charles Win- gato.
I knew him well and I use my adjectives deliberately. It is Why was this? He bad no essential to his memory and reputation. and to the esteem. affection and burning adrair- ation in which he was held by and so many British soldiers stat statesmen. that I should des. cribe not only the path which his life followed but the land-
WINGATE --by artist Emmwood, who knew him and served with him in the Burma campaigns.
There
have
went
of Isulah and Jeremiah and the promotion. He was moody"and Judges and Proverbs and unpredict; ble, "and his Biblical Paolms. He became a Plymouth · talk, especially his references Brother like his father,
to "the temptations of Satan," The bege of Charterhouse, made his companions: uneasy...
he
On a local leeve he went on an to Member him as an intros expedition into the Libyan De- tive mouse who would suddenly sert, sleeping in a hole in the run out of
as shelter the mental hole in sand in his clothes which he hid to indulge in an from the wind; and it was outburst of galety or anger. Is during this expedition that "the fellow
cadets. at Woolwich,
as he called it came upon
which he entered to train is an life & profound depression of my
offices
in the artillery, real him. "I was tempted by Satan that, for some long-lost reason, and wrestled with him through they made him run the gaunt a night and a day before God let after which he told one of helped me to conquer him." them: “I shall bear the scars of that humiliation for the rest of my Hie."
Heroic jaw
He was apt to have these · depressive bouts full of evi compulsion, when things were roing wrong for him: perhaps trt this case because the lost Oasis of Zerzura, for
seemed to choverage the which he was searching. eluded Hamed to churage the him, he
and
however. The late General And then two things occurred Beresford - Peirse, -- who was to this sombre, brooding, extra- Wingate's commanding officer ordinary young man (who was during
his period of tramming at 30) which were to warm Larkhill Barracks, recalled that illumine his cheerless life like Wingate once decided to use his twin shafts of sunlight. He met month's leave to get to know the love of his life and married Arabic idiomis
her. And he was and customs.
posted to He found a household in the
Palestine, East End used by Arabs and moved with them, resolved to eat, talk, act and behave as they did. He returned to Lark- hill unshaven, unbathed,
and lousy; and was taken
by his fellow subalterns
The husband
ORNA Patterson was 18 years old and was returning to
with by boat
her
to the sacrificial stone at England Stonehenge,
there mother.
on
stripped and scrubbed.
Wingate was going home His height was only teave. For most of the voyage medium, and even in his through the Mediterranean he twenties he had the alight had been left on his own by the stoop which was later, passengers for he had been with his topee, his clock, treating an incipient, or and
his fy-whisk to egined baldness with a favourite become
cure of his an application af a recognisable characteristic; but his meat-dripping which he obtained
face had an almost majes- from the ship's kitchen. tic handsomeness to it, Lorns Patterson seema with an heroic jaw, to have had
from no doubt, forehead, and nose, a her first view of him, that here gentle mouth, and blue-grey was the man she was going to eyes.
did which seemed to look marry, even though they
Until whom he was they were both about to dis-
embark at Marseilles. She was
In the Sudan. to. which he was seconded *s a birabashi (the most Junior rank for a British officer) in the Sudan. Force in 1928, Orde
ke coming to his own people. 38 that sort of a man was he? hours at a time, pleking at his phrase has it, with a sword in gazing.
save
If it was the will of God that later Field Marshal Earl he should die in battle, be There are Some tamque Wavell described him as the believed he would do so as a zenerals to whom, today, he is most brillian: soldier in the follower of that Gideon of the merely
guerilla 1 competent how- war.
Old Testament
to whom
the leader with a flair for publicity more Churchill wrote.
him: Lord said: of
“Go this
thy and the manners of a lout and thou shalt lead a Jewish army as its com- the mander-in-chief plains of Israel in the last great of the battle of the war, civilisation in which he believed.
Yellow tury
Ughtning, and he looked down Young Wingate is a man of Israel That he would, in fact time the light was bright and genius and audacity."
Yet
at the dark earth, again. This
so that he swing towards it and noted the position; and then he flew on.
baleful so much made
man
in
secrets
those who know the ad
of his mind and heart know too that he died an un- happy and frustrated man, and the anguish with which he met
the
was the night of March 24,
his end In slime and muck "1944. Bient morning Major-
of Burma must have been bitter General Orde C. Wingate, D.SO indeed. For though he was a and two bars, Commander of perfervid believer in the will of the Chindits, the
whom God his whole life had been Churchill had picked
the built, as
all through its adventures, next Army Commander tragedies and humiliations, on Burma, was reported missing. conviction that God
hand deep is the forest, different fate ready for him to where the American pilot had work out.
many thousands of even the burst of Blame, was miles away, in Palestine. where
search party sub- He was a Briton by birth and sequently found, among the race. but in spirit he was a charred bodies of the victims, a Jew and hoped to die one.
And
7
accoss
and
knew was up,
listened to
you
men
like
between
23
been British
the old of anyone upon
in the
bizt them
the
modern
Gloomy home
Defence
NEXT WEEK
WINGATE and the SECRET ARMY
that
Sudan
and his blood relation- ship with Lawrence of Arabla, very lovely. It is a measure of
Wingate's preoccupation through his mother's: Anglo- he did not speak to ber Irish relatives, was well known. several days.
Yet, though he was always
The
it was scape of thought, influence, and ing the Bible aloud. He would aldiers before, of course, who beyond the skin into the mind not speak to each other
ambition through which It sometimes sit, in the company
of his officers and men. for have gone to war, raked body and groaning. "Oh, one band and a Bible God."
why have you
forsaken other. Cromwell, for instance,
Montgomery, He was subject to terrible and me? bouts of depression.
and when he parallel cowered, terrified, from a Satan General Wingate is too easy. who seemed to be Toering over Orde Wingate considered Wingate could have used his his shoulder.
of the looks and charm religion the religion
as a passport Old Testaments the basis of to
promotion. Some remember him
He had as a his life
just the right back- and as a doctrine of A Wingate
a meeting with Wavell mountebank. They despised the practical military politics which round to suit his prospects. His
walk around could be followed in one way he woul
relative, Sir Reginald Wingate, had been one of the great famous general criticising his headquarters in his old topee times.
Gevemer-Generals of the conquest of East and greasy bush-jacket, carry- plan for the
his But what he (and only a few Africa and, though only a major, in an alarm clock on members of the Cabinet and bounced to his feet in a yellow
that time finger to remind you the Army Coutell)
is ticking away They hated that, evin had me emerged
stupid old him for his self-confidence and from Bunna and lived to fight fool" he cried. "It is
over-confidence and can sit in other
and assert that he was he would not places.
down back to you who lose us wars. have been allowed
There are some soldiers who incompetent and ignorant. Jerusalem; not, that is, so
so long
would describe him as a ruth- as the Holy Land remained ̧ ā
In many places in the Army less and sadistically cruel man. British Mandate.. For an order
and the Goverment, Wingale Freudian leaning with
is considered to have been. by the highest military wards the rod and whip. issueri authorities in London, on what As an officer in Palestine he the interests
traitor to his country, placing of others before they believed to be substantial
once shocked his senior officers those of his own people, in une by proposing a change in King's gravest of moments: Regulations, giving permission. for a junior officer on operations to execute his men on the spot. He instituted flogging as punish ment for Chindit soldiers found genius. asleep at their posts or stealing Which of all these different rations.
Which On both sides of the Atlantic the men who met him
really there
are men who watched him knew him? I believe he was an in the field during the war and amalgamı of many qualities-a will swear that be was mad. He fantastic mixture of greatness never washed while on a and mediocrity, of skill and in- campaign, but brushed himself competence, of gentleness and all over with a toothbrush or cruelty, of good and evil of Scourer. He liked to lie around high motives and -ferce air- naked, singing Psalms or read bitions.
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a
IRON
A
حركة
And there are great soldiers and great statesmen who insist
Orde Wingate was that
men
was
*
01
They arranged to meet in intensely ambiticus for rank in
Army, he seems
the way home, and to have Paris on mission to made next to
in no efort 10 thereafter
London. They himself ingratiate
were irretrievably in love. They with his
their intention to announced superiors.
Winze
mawry, and was probably too may
spite of anxious family conferences, with the
Aberdeen, Pattersons t
in
His grandfather once conduct
ed a Christian indigent Jews in Hungary. He was disinherited by his lately Scots, father for doing it. Orde
Wingate an ex-officer Wingate's father, in the Indian Army, believed in busy to influence his superiors. funes
от
in Surrey and the their
more susceptible wives. the Bible with such fervour that
at once in an argument about me because he was busy perfecting which Local
extreme. youth his Arabic and, to use his own Old Testament white out riding words to me, "prodding into my farmi
pointed out by both with his general, he
Lashed soul and being."
He was also families, they were married. It with his whip at the flank of the
remarkable beginning to
Was experiment in general's horse and set it off on those unorthodox methods of people, for, in her
Lorna a mad gallop.
warfare which, were to bring
Wingate, a ravishing
*
Young Orde Wingate's hane him such tame later. in England was a dark, gloomy home illumined only by the The wanderer herce shafts of revelation from the Book. He was weaned and subsequently ted on the Bible.
·
a union of two
was a woman whose indutin
W
for
ity matched that of her husband..
They sailed together Palestine. where Orde. Win- gate was to take up a job Intelligence officer at HQ Bri-
th
flist by his mother, like the H was stationed, while in tish Forces, Jerusalem, in Sep- the Sudan, on the Ethiopian tember 1930. Wingate and his poet- Ruskin before him, he border, with the job of keeping young wife read the Bible to- would be set the task of learn- order among the natives and gether, and studied -the Pale- ing it off by heart, great chunks protecting them from the raids stine question on the way.
of slave-traders coming across from Ethiopia for supplies for the
CURTAIN CURIOSITIES
By RITCHIE MCEWEN
CZECH announcement the habit of using light machine- reports that rose bushes guns when they went out hunt- Ing. have been planted at Blatna
slave markets in Addis Ababa. Ke was as ruthless with
mamoders he
the
The Zionist
caught as he VEN before they reached was later to be with captured Jerusalem they decided Arabs, Italians, and Japanese. that the Jewish casa
across the
the
border, Bessi alerg
He
In between his duties The Was the right one and would wander off by himself announced themselves, 龊
dry
convinced Zionists. Shortly afte for two his arrival Captain Wingate was there are any more faulty pro or three days at a time. He introduced to Emmanuel ducts hidden away.
would take neither food: nor Wilerakl who was suspected by water
with him. He would the British of being Chief march off, singing Psalms aloud Intelligence Officer of Hagaria, A Hungarian refuges, former-
Othe
Jewish ly a factory engineer, who has as he walked, like some
secret army. (They Testament prophet. Whether were right. He WN3.) cscaped from Hungary to Aus- the stimulus of these treks was if placed end-to-end they An investigating committee in the town of the Strok, pr it probably would stretch for 24 miles, visiting the "Lloo" plant at
for medicinal purposes. The announcement mentions that
PIO
tris, states that an arms factory tential and religious (and piercingly Wingale looked
and
w23, to
some those
#t Wilerski with home bhile-grey eyes and sold:
belfever in u Zionist you
do 100, said Wingate.
to fight for it And He learned how long he could have now you Jews will leave the town with learned to rely on his feet and you the British at this time He will need me to lead you in
Bocht."
CICE
types, Arm's pro- and
The allowed.
3 from them.
workers there are not
without food or water.
του
ducing infantry weapons
that degree), the fact remains rides including The vitamin roses are to be Burgas, Bulgaria, recently dis- aminunition,
a military guerilla. used in preparations to combat covered 12,000 yards of plaster and machine guns of unspecified Wingate got much of his experi State?" Wilenski said he d
Den disguised as has been arterio-sclerosis,
inest board (one of the The variety is called the "Krasoa dueds) hidden. In some caves chocolate factory. Uislavanka." Its colour is "red, near the plant tinged with orange.
Factory officials confessed out a special permit, which is stamina as a means of transport, Since that the plaster board was only granted in exceptional cir-Ee learned something which firmly opposed a Jewish State. faulty, and In order to avoid cumstances.
was to prove invaluable to him- Wilensid thought he was either bringing this fact to the 'natics
self bis soldiers, and his being spoofed or that Wingate, Partridges are in danger of of the authorities they had
Under a special regulation campaigns later on--an un- whom he knew to be a British dying out in Czechoslovakia— thought it best to make
Hungarian National canny knack of finding his way Intelligence officer, was trying the of the and no wonder!
board "disappear.?"
Health Scheme, insured persons across impossible and
strange to trick him. He was soon to who report sick and are unable country and reaching his
leam how wrong he was. It is well known that up to Gangs of workmen have now to work are forbidden to more Jective, using only a map
and last season the Farty bosses, arrived on the scene to "ex- more then 50 metres (about 183, a, compas.
These extracts are adapted relaxing at one of the "nation- ploce the many other caves in foet) from their front.
The Sudan falled to teach him." from "Gideon Goes to War" alised shooting boxes, were in the neighbourhood" and see it, while drawing benefits.
how to make friends or win published by Arthur Bar
MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN
ALEENA'S STORY= FACE TO FACE WITH THE ENEMY KING--TO SETTLE A WARI
YOU HAVE NO GUN/
· I TOLD YOU--I AM READY! FIRE AT WILL!
2
{"HE WAS FURIOUS—AND BEGAN TO
FIRE-OR THOUGHT HE DID~~!!
TE YOU AND "YOUR FOOLISH KING WANT IT
THIS WAY --
50 BE IT
"NATURALLY, HE WAS UNDER NAY- HYPHOTIC SPELL ALL THE WHILE,
EXPLAINS ALEENA WITH A SMILE.
doors
By Lee Fall and Phil Davis
ROLEX
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EVEN MAGICIANS
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