Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Doctrinal Background
- 2 Wingate before Palestine, 1923–36
- 3 Wingate and Counterterrorism in Palestine, 1937–9
- 4 Wingate in Ethiopia, 1940–1
- 5 Wingate in Burma (1) – the Origins of the Chindits, 1942–3
- 6 Wingate in Burma (2) – Operations Longcloth and Thursday, and the Subsequent Development of Long Range Penetration
- 7 The ‘Wingate Myth’ Reassessed
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Introduction
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Doctrinal Background
- 2 Wingate before Palestine, 1923–36
- 3 Wingate and Counterterrorism in Palestine, 1937–9
- 4 Wingate in Ethiopia, 1940–1
- 5 Wingate in Burma (1) – the Origins of the Chindits, 1942–3
- 6 Wingate in Burma (2) – Operations Longcloth and Thursday, and the Subsequent Development of Long Range Penetration
- 7 The ‘Wingate Myth’ Reassessed
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
There was a man of genius, who might well have become also a man of destiny
Winston ChurchillMuch of what he preached strategically, operationally, and tactically, was flawed, and some of it was downright nonsense.
Major General Julian ThompsonThese two quotations provide but a tiny sample of opinions of Major General Orde Charles Wingate (1903–44), a well-known and controversial figure in both Britain and Israel. His reputation, and popular image, stem from three episodes occurring late in a military career beginning with his graduation from the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1923 and ending with his death in an air crash in Burma in 1944. First was the Palestine Arab uprising of 1936–9, when Wingate, then a captain in the Royal Artillery, was authorized by two British General Officers Commanding (GOC) Palestine, General Sir Archibald Wavell and General Sir Robert Haining, to train Jewish policemen, in British-orgaized irregular units, in his personal brand of counter-insurgency. These included Moshe Dayan and Yigal Allon, and they, and, later, Ariel Sharon identified Wingate as a major influence upon Israeli military thought. However, he roused strong feelings even then, as he deployed Jewish units, in majority Arab areas, in pre-emptive and reprisal attacks on Arab villages believed to be hiding insurgents, and used some robust methods to extract intelligence from captured suspects.
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- Information
- Orde Wingate and the British Army, 1922–1944 , pp. 1 - 18Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014