Ο
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, AUGUST.
1955.
Wingate's tumultuous career moves to its climax. Then, a radio flash tells of—
NĮ the night. of August 4, 1943, Winston Churchill
ordered dinner alone at 10 Downing Street. He had a good deal to think about,
The following day he was to leave for the conference with President Roosevelt and his advisers at Quebec, And- high on the list of priorities for talks WAB the war against the Japanese in East - Asia.
Churchill had spotted a a Briton from whom he ex- pected great things in those operations. He had met Orde Wingate and appreciated his same time genius, at the
that he waS aware of his faults.
DISASTER at 4 a.m.
Chapter 8 In the story of Britain's Strangest. Hero
by
-LEONARD MOSLEY
'I'm ready'
THERE
WHAT'S THE RUSSIAN FOR ZANY?
Moscow.
7ES, there are smiles in Moscow these days, which of course is a welcome change but, believe me, there is still quite a lot of the same old Russia loft, which makes life odd for the foreigners and often downright frustrating for the visiting newspaper correa- requests for information. A. pondent.
phono
A MISTAKE!
I watched the guests making dreary volco, like one of those away with that load of fruit, gramophone records which An American colleague is
ielephones,
Very few of the bananda got answer
repeated
Most of whether there was opposition, wight. Look at Piccadily. We paying his second visit to over and over: "We are know eaten on the spot.
them were slipped Into, men's gliders Russia, the first having been ing nothing." and hold a perimeter while the can't possibly land
pockets and women's handbags, containing Elders
bulldozers there. What do we do cancel in the nineteen-twentica,
Finally-on the fourth day- One man slid, a couple behind and graders arrived with US. the operation?"
there was hope, "We have the display handkerchief in his technicians to work them, The
The other day he was written to Mademoiselle breast pocket, like cigars,, *
her. plan was, 12 hours after D-Day,
Was a long silence. writing a "then-and-now" Zhukova transmitting to to have a strip prepared for Dakotas to come in with Jeeps, Wingate's face went grey. piece for his paper, and your request.... "
On the sixth day my Brigadier Michael mentioned that the first time pack animals, guns, transport, And then
Then the columns Calvert, who was to lead the he ever saw Stalin he noticed rang. It was my pai from the and radlo.
"I have to inform (for would march out to meet the troops on the operation
the future leader of Russia Ministry, this time Wingate,
com- Japanese,
behind) had a large patch on the you that Mademoiselle Zhukova
has left Moscow on her honey- ES, It's much the same old
YES The spaces
the jungle mander, was staying They had started by disliking
sent of his trousers,
moon. She is thus not in a I Moscow. Walting anything the ability named Pigetdilly and Broadway
position to grant a meeting." RIT prepared," he said,
up to two hours to get an in- each other, but which each showed at his own had been thoroughly photo "to take all my brigade into This phrase was
blue- Job
changed this to
graphed weeks
That was the first time they'd different meal.... My being before: now Broadway. It'll mean & slower
consors, even admitted that the wedding Kremlin and then being refused sent on Invitation to the inutual respect,
Wingate ordered reconnaissance build-up and I'll have
to re-pencilled by the the height of this planes to keep off them, so as briet my Plecadilly men. Then, ut
But My colleague decided to nad taken place,
admittance. But why? I to lul Japanese suspicions.
we'll go.
contest the point..
naked. "You invited mo," "You must come with me to FLANKED by truisers, her dizzily happy period, double
pulvlied by Marines, disaster struck.
Wingate could not conceal his Quebec and tell your story to
A hunch a floating Firat he went
relief and gratitude. the Amerleins," Churchill said. the Queen Mary was It was LICAD
nine o'clock. "Our G.L.Q. with the brains and heart typhoid. train leaves for Glasgow at 10."
As Churchill sat down to din- ner the news come
That Wingate had arrived and was lo the house, Churchill immediately sent for him and asked him to join him at dinner. Wingate came in, clean-shaven, but still dressed in his bush-shirt and denim trousers.
The two men took to each other st
once
Orde Wingate leaped like a
spring trout at the opportunity, and then immediately afterwards
remembered his wife,
The power
"They had
very happy voyage together," rays Churchill of the Wingates' trip in the Queen Mary to Quebec.
Floating G.H.Q.
down
with
in
on
camo up.
4
"Don't you see," he urged, The timo was six o'clock in "It shows the simplicity of of the British war effort aboard. When Wavell heard about it, ORTUNATELY for him, the evening of Sunday, March
Churchill and the Chiefs of he had Wingate flown 10
one of Cochran's
pilots 5, 1944. The tropical night was Stalin-why, it makes him disobeyed him, Captain Charles beginning to come down. To seem like our own. Abra- Staff were still guiding the battle hospital in Delhi and then seni
to Russhon
told was
of Win- one
the brass-hats from ham Lincoln," side even from inid-Atlantic. Each a special plane to Imphal,
ban Matron McGeary, Bale's day they thrashed out details of bring back
reconnais G.11.Q, waited to see what was but Overlord, the coming invasion of
the
kept pressing
going to happen. remarkable Scots woman sance,
"AU right,
then, Michael," the France. A day was given over who hud
indefatigably his C.O. to let him visit 60
landing to South-East Asia and Wingate nursed the
"off Chindits after
He sald Orde grounds again.
Wingate, spoke long and eloquently. The first Burma campaign.
by Colonel R. T. Smith. Chiefs of Staff were taken with
It was mainly owing to her
and skill
whe 11 o'clock on faithfulness
that time
the Sunday morning, and the Wingate survived.
operction's H-hour was than seven hours away.
him.
For Orde and Lorna Wingate be Quebec Conference was an interlude of almost unhoped for serenity, after the strains and
Jungle columns
E had had no opportunity of H telling her he
was in Eng- with land, and she was staying her parents near Aberdeen.
It was one of those occasions which the Prime Minister loved, of showing, as is perhaps only possible in wartime, what power
to major is possessed by the arbiter of a nation's destiny. He rang for General had come through, to
10 tary and explained Win- gether with a second bar to his Kale's
stresses of the months before.
promotion
His
his problem. An hour later D.S.O.
At 6 o'clock on the morning of August 6, Wingate wns still in
Mrs Wingate was greeted at her Wingate was a very different home in Aberdeen by a couple character from the hysterical of polleemen who told her to major who had crawled back in pack on overnight bag and put disgrace from Cairo in 1941. her into their car.
And to make his happiness complete he learned just before returning to India that he was af He plunged into a bout work on his return. In London had already met he
the Colonel American,
Philip Cochran, who was to command
the air side of the operation.
his baggy tropical uniform when be stepped from the special train at Waverley Station, Edinburgh, In the fresh clarity of a Scottish dawe, Lorna Wingate, until now ignorant of why she was there, sudklenly saw him..
to become father.
the
She lay in bed, fighting the A
battle with typhoid, he learned through friends that a plot was foot cancel the Chindit operation,
At last 11 Was decided that the campaign should go ahead, though it was no longer the grandioce opera tion Wingate had planned,
Fourteen thousand men were
to be set down on three landing grounds, one called "Piccadilly".
another called "Broadway,
there and
also an was strip emergency,
at Chow- ringhee. All were 250 miles behind the Japanese in Burma. First gliders carrying Infantry would land and signal back
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ชวน
SO SUNNY
"There has been a mistake, comrade. No admittance."...
Coming out of an open-als bullet performance of "Don
My first day in Moscow 1 Culote" in Moscow's Park of
For this was Soviet Navy Week, and everywhere were huge posters glorifying Red sub- marines and battleships,
paid a courtesy call on the Culture and Rest the other night the censor Foreign Ministry and met with I paused to admire the splendid. "Plense, sir,"
my singing of a Russian Navy choir. said, "we do not welcome so sunny a reception that finally took off in a B26 piloted go. And remember, in quiet-the comparison, After all, hopes momentarily rose,
I was urged to make sugges- and confidence shall be Lincoln' was assassinated!" The Hess
tions for articles, and when I your strength."
did so they seemed to be enter- The gilder descent on Brond-
iained as reasonable.. Amanz way began an hour or so bgtore
them was that I should visit the midnight.
House of the Journalists, which is what the Moscow newanen call their club.
cas
Both pilot and photographer gasped with dismay when they Faw the Piccadilly clearing.
been
New experience OR Orde Wingate it was the first experience of what it was like to be a high commander headquarters, instead of, as had happened before, A Aghting commander in the field.
Cochran recalls the scene.
HEADACHES
YES, it's a hard row to hoe
"Picase write this in a letter," said the Foreign Office officiat,
"and we shall takb stepe.”
of
ho
1 am
Կե perhaps? I eagerly
:
But my enjoyment was chilled my eye fell on the long line of propaganda posiers villtying and ridiculing the West.
Incitement campaign hatred of Britain and America There were
small streaks
for us newsmen here,
is not dead yet by a long shot.
Highspot of the visit: across it wherever they could
That little interchange over
sitting having a chat with Lon- sce. They took the plane in
Now, before 1, break it to you don's Lord Mayor, Sir Seymour lower, and then saw that hun-
in eGneva between Krush-
how that one wound up, I must Howard, in his suite in the posh dreds of great logs had
"He kept combing his beard, chey and Eisenhower, for tell of an hilarious scene over Sovietskaya Hotel, and he asks placed over the clearing. There all the time he hunched over
drink. was one clear space, but here the radio set. He had a special instance the headaches that at the Egyptian Embassy when if I would like
they were celebrating Egypt's there were signs of excavation, way of combing the wet locks has meant !
national day.
accept, because Western drinics Whiches or mining, which could mean either so that they curled upwards
The usual gay, throng of pre completely unobtainable into his mouth. He and sprang
and. You recall that Krush diplomats
wives had here, and I suppose the Lord By this time it was late after chewed them as he kept saying:
brought some gin tipped Ike off that gathered for the usual Moscow Mayor noon and the operation would "Why doesn't Calvert report?"
with him. soon be under way, and it was At 4 am, on the morning of Marshal Zhukov's daughter party.
However, he rings the bell, March
report
But this was, a party with a did vital that the news of the new
6. Calvert
big difference. As the eyes of and when the waitress appears Pment
should
reach He sent a single word over his was being married in Mos..
link and then immedicow just then. Naturally we the arriving guests fell on IT he says, as though it were the before the gliders took radio otherwise disaster faced closed down. The single wanted to know more about their glances widened, their most natural thing in the world,
Two gins-and-tonies, please... faced, ately
times, it. When would the wed- fingers curved with Involun- plenty of tran word, repeated. three
and they The photographs were flown WRE
"Sovalink, Soudlink, ding be? Where? Could wie tary acquistiveness,
The waitress's jaw drops, she to sidle over towards IT started Wingate. When he saw. Sovalink."
mutters something and with- then his eyes glowed with It was the operation's code- meet Medemoiselle Zhukova? with elaborate unconcern.
pause, and then For IT was a huge platter or draws. bananas. And Moscow
off.
to
anger.
I..
thought I said no word for Disaster. reconnaissance,” he shouted.
took these pletures?
"Who
"He did,"
replied Cochran,
pointing at Russhon, "becauso
he had a hunch, and he was
WORLD COPYRIGHT
Next week:
CODE WORD: "SOYALINK"
W
Anywhere else in the world-but not in Russia.
I bombarded the Press section with of the Foreign Ministry
has
11
banana in the besno interpreter op-
today is regarded in pears and asks just what was roughly the same way as it was it the distinguished visitor was in Britain in 1945,
I could requesting?
Gin and tonic, we repeat.' hardly keep a straight face as
But it was about the same thing as ordering vodka in an Aberdeen pub on a Saturday night. We finally settled for a battle of Georgian red wine.
PSST! WANT A PYTHON ?
- AMANDA
MARSHALL thinks women are
far too conventional in their choice of pets. They should take a tip from men...
NY day now I to hear the whisper in
TV has
popularised
| phenomena-tiled adies
expect rodents, and the rest of us con- urgent tinue to Oxford and the corgispecially
make do with the poodle, the dachshund, the peke
two tonal in and Men are
exotic animals. Everyone turous.
its
For Audrey Hepburn — ✡ kingfisher and an antelope
་ ་
THE ALIBI
,
I find it hard ever to imagine Lilli Palmer again without her Siamese-familiar. Byewacket, who appears sleekly every night in Bell, Book and Candle. And Potor Brook's wife, Natasha Parry, an actress as the AND now about that request ♫ of mine to visit the House haired, pale-skinned and deli of the Journalists. When I was cately beautiful as a princess in here last year the Russians used Persian miniature, quite to dream up some glorious alibis clearly should owns she does when, for any reason they didn't two Siamese called Miauless want you to go somewhere, But and Minouche
the favourite reason of all was that
the place was "being re paired."
So week after I had put in my letter of request the phone "my friend" with rings and it's the dead vodoo from the Foreign Ministry.
"Meester MacColl," he begins. we regret that it is not being possible for you to visit the House of the Journalists, be
Street: "Lady I Want a coati- honoured by Royal patronage. mundi just like David And, of course, there is still the Attenborough'a?"
Siamese cat group generally in- A mon- tellectually and artistically dis- goose? How about a nice tinguished though I already little baby python going foresee the day when cheap? Just like on
the Abyssinian, memoirs, the elegant rival.
A Cure for Serpents, will zucceed to favour.
I'd like all famous people to telly?"
kept u pet lioness who loved him
the right animal, Women
are far too conven- so extravagantly that she would own exactly their choice of pets, nip the nylons from the legs of like a signature. I'd like to pro
unsuspecting female guests who sent a handsome dancing bear much more
adven might possibly be competing for to Orson Welles; a friendly black
attention.
panther to Ava Gardner; a knows that the English have always worshipped the horse.
Lucian Freud used to travel on the Underground with a hawk Sometimes It seems that the white cat with blue eyes or a Our national figures aren't really
puma kitten to Diane Cilento; "Don't tell me," I broke in. Nelson and the Iron Duke, but that looked curiously like him right owner finds just exactly
an antelope and a kingfisher to "Let me guess. Because it's Brumas. Orlando, Black Beauty, sitter with Mr Freud and a very companion.
and Ived amicably in a bed- the right sort
of animal Audrey Hepburn; two doves to being repaired?" Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger.
After Sir Winston's Claire Bloom; six white peacocks
"Yes," he replied. "But how much smaller, caged bird. T. H. poodle Rufus left Downing
are you knowing this?" And ever since our homes were While, the author, once devoted Street, it seemed only right and a heraldic leopard to Dame invaded by Michaela Denis with his entire waking life to training that another poodle Lady Edith Sitwell; a team of salukia leopards in her lap, Poter Scott a goshawk, used to recite Mac- with birds, George Cansdale with beth to it, and nearly reduced small, sharp-toothed furry himself and the bird to a stole creatures of varying shapes and of mutual nervous prostration. Rizes, and even
Disney turned
his attention to seals, beavers- and desert scorpions, I've ox- pected this pictorial, mania for strange peta to become domestic reality.
Eden's-—should move in to pre- to Dietrich; a mastift and a serve continuity, Charles Creed's awan to Garbo; and to Somerset neatly tailored spruce corgi
just the sort of dog to accom- Maugham,
true tortoise, pany gentleman of elegance.'
More originality, more dash
1
very old wise
cause"
The most beautifully P.S.
section of pavod
Moscow, with the most sparkling now It is perfectly natural that that's what women pet-lovers stretch of roadway, is just out- side the Yugoslav Embamy. Cyril Connolly always had a Peter Ustinov, most English of nord. After all, the the world The Russians started frantic own a large, can order anything in work on it the day after it was sack, Russians, should passion for lemurs, thoon delicate creatures that may yet bumbling, friendly sort of dog from the roo department in a far we seem all too become extinct. And the Duke called Colonel Margot Fonteyn, London store. Since A Kid for announced that Tita, will visi willing to stick to old loves. of Pirojno, who worked as a always elegantly groomed, Two Farthings I'm surprised them. Children go on doting on pocket- doctor in Africa and has just obviously ought to collect cats, they haven't been overwhelmed
by orders for upicorns, able, disturbingly family-minded published
fascinating and does-chipa ones.
But so
his
He isn't omcialýý ''
duountri
the New Year--but who knows?
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1