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By Root 1525 0

1921, and hardly shone there either, graduating fifty-ninth out of seventy. It was actual experience of guerrilla warfare in Palestine and Ethiopia that convinced Wingate that a small force could wage a new type of long-range penetration warfare beyond the Chindwin river. ‘If you’re in the Army you have to do something extraordinary to be noticed,’ he once said. He certainly achieved that in his comparatively short life. When fighting the Italians in Ethiopia and the Sudan or Arab terrorists in Palestine – Wingate was an ardent Zionist – or indeed the Japanese, Wingate often found himself also ranged against the British military High Command, who tended deeply to distrust his unconventional methods. He struck his own men in both the Sudan and Palestine, hardly adding to his popularity. Yet as the writer Wilfred Thesiger, who served under him, pointed out, the defeat of 40,000 Italian-led troops by two battalions of Ethiopians and Sudanese could have been achieved only with Wingate in command.

There were two separate Chindit expeditions, with many lessons learnt in 1943 that were put into operation in 1944. Their training in India was comprehensive, with bayonet practice at 6 a.m. followed by unarmed combat, jungle-craft lectures, use of the compass, map-reading, two hours of fatigues in the afternoon, latrine-building and jungle-clearing with machetes. On exercise the Chindits would concentrate on blowing up bridges, disabling airfields and especially staging ambushes. Brigadier Michael Calvert, one of Wingate’s key lieutenants, later stated of this regime: ‘Most Europeans do not know what their bodies can stand; it is the mind and willpower which so often give way first. Most soldiers never realized that they could do the things they did… One advantage of exceptionally heavy training is that it proves to a man what he can do and suffer. If you have marched thirty miles in a day, you can take twenty-five miles in your stride.’24

In the first Chindit sally, Operation Longcloth, Wingate crossed the Chindwin into Japanese-occupied northern Burma on the night of 13 February 1943 with 3,000 men. Using mules for transportation and air drops for supplies, he marched 500 miles in order to harass the Japanese and cut their rail links. Wingate’s Order of the Day stated:

Today we are on the threshold of battle. The time of preparation is over and we are moving on the enemy to prove ourselves and our methods… The battle is not always to the strong, nor the race to the swift. Victory in war cannot be counted on, but what can be counted on is that we shall go forward determined to do what we can to bring this war to an end… Knowing the vanity of Man’s effort and the confusion of his purpose, let us pray that God may accept our service and direct our endeavours, so that when we shall have done all we shall see the fruit of our labours and be satisfied.25

On 18 February the Chindits succeeded in cutting the railway link between Mandalay and Myitkyina for four weeks. Thousands of Japanese were being diverted from other operations, especially against China, to try to swat the small force. Then, on 6 March, the Chindits blew up three important railway bridges in the Bongyaung region. On 15 March two Chindit columns, under Calvert and Major Bernard Fergusson (later Lord Ballantrae), crossed the Irrawaddy river with plans to destroy the strategic Gokteik Gorge railway viaduct. The east bank of the Irrawaddy, however, with its lack of adequate cover, made it much more difficult to operate there than in the jungle on the west side of the river. Although they were successfully supplied by air occasionally, food and sustenance were limited and constant forced marches burnt up energy. The fighting was fierce, too, and almost always against heavy odds. By 26 March only three-quarters of the Chindits were left of the original 3,000-strong force, of whom 600 were badly emaciated. With three Japanese divisions advancing on them, they moved north towards India and eventual escape, crossing back over the Chindwin in the second half of April 1943. Before