70 Facts About Orde Wingate

Major General Orde Charles Wingate, was a senior British Army officer known for his creation of the Chindit deep-penetration missions in Japanese-held territory during the Burma Campaign of the Second World War.

Under the patronage of the area commander Archibald Wavell, Orde Wingate was given increasing latitude to put his ideas into practice during the Second World War.

At a time when Britain was in need of morale-boosting generalship, Orde Wingate attracted British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's attention with a self-reliant aggressive philosophy of war, and was given resources to stage a large-scale operation.

Orde Wingate was killed in an aircraft accident in March 1944.

Orde Wingate believed that resistance to infection could be improved by inculcating a tough mental attitude, but medical officers considered his methods unsuited to a tropical environment.

Orde Wingate, the eldest of three sons, was born on 26 February 1903 at Naini Tal near Almora in Kumaon, India, into a military family.

Orde Wingate's father retired from the army two years after Wingate was born.

The seven Orde Wingate children received a Christian education that was typical for that period, and time was set aside each day for studying and memorising the Scriptures.

In 1916, his family moved to Godalming where Orde Wingate attended Charterhouse as a day boy.

Orde Wingate did not board at the school nor did he participate in the activities of a public school education.

When it came time for Orde Wingate to run the gauntlet, for allegedly having returned a horse to the stables too late, he walked up to the senior student at the head of the gauntlet, stared at him and dared him to strike.

Orde Wingate moved to the next senior and did the same; he too refused.

In turn, each senior declined to strike; coming to the end of the line, Orde Wingate walked to the cistern and dived straight into the icy-cold water.

In 1923, Orde Wingate received his Royal Artillery officer's commission and was posted to the 5th Medium Brigade at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain.

Orde Wingate was promoted to lieutenant on 29 August 1925.

In 1926, Orde Wingate was posted to the Army School of Equitation, where he excelled, much to the chagrin of the majority of the cavalry officers at the centre, who found him insufferable; he frequently challenged the instructors, as a demonstration of his rebellious nature.

Orde Wingate gave him a positive interest in Middle East affairs and in Arabic.

In June 1927, with Cousin Rex's encouragement, Wingate obtained six months' leave in order to mount an expedition in the Sudan.

Orde Wingate changed the method of regular patrolling to ambushes.

Orde Wingate was never happier than when in the bush with his unit, but when at HQ in Khartoum, he antagonised the other officers with his aggressive and argumentative personality.

Orde Wingate was granted the local rank of captain in the regular army on 16 April 1930.

Orde Wingate concluded his service in the Sudan on 2 April 1933.

On his return to the UK in 1933, Orde Wingate was posted to Bulford on Salisbury Plain and was heavily involved in retraining, as British artillery units were being mechanised.

From 13 January 1935, Orde Wingate was seconded to the Territorial Army as the adjutant of the 71st Field Brigade, a Territorial Army unit of the Royal Artillery, with the temporary rank of captain.

Orde Wingate was promoted to the substantive rank of captain on 16 May 1936, and vacated his appointment as adjutant on 8 September.

In September 1936, Orde Wingate was assigned to a staff officer position in the British Mandate of Palestine, and became an intelligence officer.

Orde Wingate became politically involved with a number of Zionist leaders, and became an ardent Christian Zionist himself.

Orde Wingate always returned to Kibbutz En Harod, because he felt familiar with the biblical judge Gideon, who fought in this area, and used it himself as a military base.

Orde Wingate formulated the idea of raising small assault units of British-led Jewish commandos armed with grenades and light infantry small arms to combat the Arab revolt.

Orde Wingate took his idea personally to Archibald Wavell, who was then the commander of British forces in Palestine.

Orde Wingate believed in the principle of surprise in punishment, which was designed to confine the gangs to their villages.

Orde Wingate did not try to justify himself; weapons and war cannot be pure.

Orde Wingate employed various forms of torture against the Arabs, some non-lethal.

In September 1938, after a rebel mine killed the Jewish leader of Ein Harod settlement, Chaim Sturman, Wingate let out a "cry, more a scream than an order" and carried out a reprisal operation on the Arab quarter of Beisan, near the explosion.

Orde Wingate himself went out of control, entering stores and destroying whatever was in them.

Orde Wingate was so deeply associated with political causes in Palestine that his superiors considered him compromised as an intelligence officer in the country.

Orde Wingate was promoting his own agenda rather than that of the army or the government.

Orde Wingate was the commander of an anti-aircraft unit in Britain when the Second World War began.

Orde Wingate repeatedly made proposals to the army and government for the creation of a Jewish army in Palestine which would rule over the area and its Arab population in the name of the British.

Orde Wingate created Gideon Force under William Platt, the British commander in Sudan, a Special Operations Executive force composed of British, Sudanese, and Ethiopian soldiers.

Orde Wingate invited a number of veterans of the Haganah SNS to join him, with the blessing of Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie, and the group began to operate in February 1941.

Orde Wingate was temporarily promoted lieutenant colonel and put in command.

Orde Wingate again insisted on leading from the front and accompanied his troops in the reconquest of Abyssinia.

Alan Cunningham which had advanced from Kenya in the south, and they accompanied the emperor in his triumphant return to Addis Ababa that May Orde Wingate was mentioned in dispatches in April 1941 and was awarded a bar to his DSO in December.

Orde Wingate left for Cairo and wrote an official report which was extremely critical of his commanders, fellow officers, government officials, and many others.

Orde Wingate was angry that his efforts had not been praised by authorities and that he had been forced to leave Abyssinia without saying farewell to Emperor Selassie.

Orde Wingate was most concerned about British attempts to stifle Ethiopian freedom, writing that attempts to raise future rebellions amongst populations must be honest ones and should appeal to justice.

Orde Wingate was already depressed by the official response to his Abyssinian command, and he was sick with malaria; he attempted suicide by stabbing himself in the neck.

Orde Wingate was far from pleased with his posting as a "supernumerary major without staff grading", but he left Britain for Rangoon on 27 February 1942.

Orde Wingate would eat raw onions because he thought that they were healthy, scrub himself with a rubber brush instead of bathing, and greet visitors to his tent while completely naked.

Orde Wingate then persuaded Wavell to let him proceed into Burma anyway, arguing the need to disrupt any Japanese attack on Sumprabum as well as to gauge the utility of long-range jungle penetration operations, and Wavell eventually gave his consent to Operation Longcloth.

Orde Wingate set out from Imphal on 12 February 1943 with the Chindits organised into eight separate columns to cross the Chindwin river.

The force met with initial success in putting one of the main railways in Burma out of action, then Orde Wingate led them deep into Burma and over the Irrawaddy River.

On his return, Orde Wingate wrote an operations report in which he was again highly critical of the army and even some of his own officers and men.

Orde Wingate promoted more unorthodox ideas such as the idea that British soldiers had become weak by having too easy access to doctors in civilian life.

Orde Wingate's illness prevented him from taking a more active role in training of the new long-range jungle forces.

Orde Wingate selected Brigadier Joe Lentaigne as the new commander.

However, once back in India, Orde Wingate was promoted to acting major general and was given six brigades.

At first, Orde Wingate proposed to convert the entire front into one giant Chindit mission by breaking up the whole of the Fourteenth Army into Long-Range Penetration units, presumably in the expectation that the Japanese would follow them around the Burmese jungle in an effort to wipe them out.

Orde Wingate took the news bitterly, voicing disappointment to all who would listen, including Allied commanders such as Colonel Philip Cochran of the 1st Air Commando Group, which proved to be a blessing in disguise.

Orde Wingate planned that part of 77 Brigade would land by glider in Burma and prepare airstrips into which 111 Brigade and the remainder of 77 Brigade would be flown by C-47 transport aircraft.

Orde Wingate passed the responsibility for ordering the operation to proceed or to be cancelled to Slim.

On 24 March 1944, Orde Wingate flew to assess the situations in three Chindit-held bases in Burma.

Orde Wingate flew out of Burma to assume command as Japanese forces began their assault on Imphal.

In Ethiopia, Orde Wingate is remembered as liberator from the Italian occupation.

Oren has accused Segev of maligning Orde Wingate, arguing that Segev has "edited" accounts by contemporaries to imply that Orde Wingate was present at incidents in Palestine when he was in London at the time.

Orde Wingate's wife was Lorna Paterson who was the daughter of Walter Edward Moncrieff Paterson and the violist Alice Ivy Hay.

Orde Wingate died in 2000 at the age of 56, and was survived by his wife and two daughters.

Orde Wingate was related to Reginald Wingate and Ronald Wingate.

Orde Wingate's sister was missionary and linguist Rachel O Wingate.