ORDE WINGATE OF NAINITAL: PROFILE IN COURAGE & LEADERSHIP

(The Naini Lake)

(ORDE CHARLES WINGATE, DSO ** STUDIED HERE)

(WAVELL)

(CHINDITS ,1942)

(Vinegar Joe)

(Chindits boarding)

(SLIM)

Orde Wingate, the son of an army officer, was born in Naini Tal, India, on 26th February, 1903. 

Educated at Charterhouse, Wingate graduated from Woolwich in 1923 and was commissioned in the Royal Artillery. He studied at the School of Oriental Studies in London before serving for five years in the Sudan Defence Force (1928-33).

In 1936 Wingate joined the intelligence staff in Palestine. He was responsible for organizing, training and leading raids against Arab terrorist bases before being wounded in July 1938. After recovering from his injuries he served under General Archibald Wavell, the head of the Middle East Command.

On the outbreak of the Second World War, Wingate was sent to Khartoum where he formed the Gideon Force and organized raids against Italian units on the Abyssinian border. With only a few hundred men Wingate bluffed 12,000 Italians into surrender. Wingate then joined up with General William Platt and the Sudan Defence Force and on 4th May 1941 they entered Addis Ababa.

General Archibald Wavell, the new Commander in Chief in India had seen his potential & 'out of the box' thinking.Promoted to the rank of brigadier, Wingate was given permission to form the Chindits, a group of soldiers who were to be trained in jungle raiding and guerrilla tactics.

Wingate was known as a mad guy but his madness was not without method,and to some degree his strange and peculiar behaviourial pattern may have been calculated"With English of a certain class," he once said ,"the worst crime you can commit is to be different,unorthodox,unexpected.I am all those things.The only way to get these qualities tolerated,if not accepted,is to transform one's 'difference' into eccentricity."

In February 1943, Wingate and 3,000 Chindits entered Burma. Their task was to disrupt Japanese communications, attack outposts and destroy bridges. The operation was very costly and of the 2,000 who returned, 600 never recovered to be able to fight again.

Wingate met Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt in August 1943 and explained his theory of Long Range Penetration. Churchill was impressed and agreed to expand the size of the Chindits and Wingate was promoted to Major General and given six brigades (3rd Indian Division). Roosevelt also decided to create a similar group led by an American officer, Frank Merrill.

(FRANK MERRILL)

Wingate returned to India in September 1943 and began to plan Operation Thursday. The plan was aimed at destroying Japanese communications from southern Burma to the those fighting General Joseph Stilwell in the north and William Slim in Imphal and Kohima.

Operation Thursday was launched by Wingate in Burma on 5th March, 1944. The Chindits established Broadway, a jungle clearing 200 miles behind Japanese lines. This included an airstrip that enabled supplies and reinforcements to be flown in and the wounded flown out.

The Chindits fought on valiantly in Burma until they were withdrawn in August,1944.With the help of close air support,they had defeated 11 Japanese battalions and tied up troops the enemy desperately needed elsewhere.

But their inspiring,eccentric leader was not on hand to share their success.On the evening of March 24,1944,Wingate was returning to Lalaghat airstrip from a forward tour when the B-25 he was in suddenly plunged into the rugged hills west of Imphal.So violent was the crash and the ensuing fire that all that was recovered was Wingate's battered pith helmet and some charred letters from home that made the identification possible.

'A BRIGHT FLAME WAS EXTINGUISHED', said the then PM Winston Churchill in tribute to a great soldier and a leader par excellence who led from the front!

(FOR MY FRIENDS PURSUING HIGHER STUDIES IN MANAGEMENT-AS ASKED BY THEM)