Alec Gibson

Paul Markey

Tony Redding

Surrounded by the Japanese, Orde Wingate led the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade in one of the most imaginative and complex escapes of World War II.

Joshua Whitehead

Wingate and the Chindits

An Extraordinary Tale.

At the end of the feature film, &quot;The Bridge on the River Kwai,&quot; when everything has been completely destroyed, the British doctor looks down at the smoking wreckage and moans, &quot;Madness. Madness!&quot; That about sums up this story of the British and Gurkha soldiers who formed seven columns, accompanied by pack mules, to infiltrate the Japanese lines in Burma, attack selected installations, and generally disrupt enemy activities. They were to be supplied with food and ammunition by air drops.

They were led by the eccentric officer Orde Wingate, a tough, skinny loner given to self testing. Wingate was visited by the director John Ford and received him with no clothes. The plan was carefully thought out, but carefully thought-out plans often unravel, as anyone should know.

One column was sent south instead of east, as a decoy to mislead the Japanese. It was intercepted by the Japanese and destroyed. The remaining forces caught the Japanese by surprise and carried out their missions with some success.

But once the Japanese were alerted to their presence, Wingate&apos;s men were hunted down by swarms of enemy soldiers. But that was barely half the problem. The monsoons kept everything wet. The radios didn&apos;t work. The men and mules lived in a sea of mud. And no wounded or sick were taken along as the men retreated. They were either left to die or in some cases, when their friends could bring themselves to do it, they were shot through the head.

Their mission complete, the men were barely able to walk and pulled themselves through the bush by holding on to tree branches. When they reached a place of temporary safety, they expected to go home to India, if they could manage it.

Instead, Wingate, decided to take the bedraggled remnants of the Chindits not east, towards the Indian border, but west into Japanese territory. &quot;His orders became increasingly opaque,&quot; observes one of the survivors. The decision took them beyond the range of air drops and they began eating whatever was at hand, including the mules, which they had grown fond of. One talking head reads a poem he wrote to the mule he had to kill and chokes up with emotion. It&apos;s not at all as funny as it may sound.

Finally ordered to return, Wingate decided to break his force up into units of about thirty men and told them to make their way either back to India or north to the safety of China. Either way, it was a walk of some one thousand torturous miles through jungles and over mountains, without additional food or supplies.

Of all the Chindits, about a thousand were killed, captured, or died of sickness. The six hundred who returned (as much as four months after they&apos;d left) were so debilitated they never saw action again. The survivors were polished up and marched through Delhi, cheered as the heroes they were. Wingate was promoted to major general before dying in an air crash.

What a story!

If you&apos;d like to watch some feature films that are loosely based on the Chindits, try to find &quot;Objective Burma&quot; or &quot;Merrill&apos;s Marauders,&quot; the difference being that Americans do it instead of Brits. Errol Flynn has never been braver.

At the end of the feature film, "The Bridge on the River Kwai," when everything has been completely destroyed, the British doctor looks down at the smoking wreckage and moans, "Madness. Madness!" That about sums up this story of the British and Gurkha soldiers who formed seven columns, accompanied by pack mules, to infiltrate the Japanese lines in Burma, attack selected installations, and generally disrupt enemy activities. They were to be supplied with food and ammunition by air drops.

They were led by the eccentric officer Orde Wingate, a tough, skinny loner given to self testing. Wingate was visited by the director John Ford and received him with no clothes. The plan was carefully thought out, but carefully thought-out plans often unravel, as anyone should know.

One column was sent south instead of east, as a decoy to mislead the Japanese. It was intercepted by the Japanese and destroyed. The remaining forces caught the Japanese by surprise and carried out their missions with some success.

But once the Japanese were alerted to their presence, Wingate's men were hunted down by swarms of enemy soldiers. But that was barely half the problem. The monsoons kept everything wet. The radios didn't work. The men and mules lived in a sea of mud. And no wounded or sick were taken along as the men retreated. They were either left to die or in some cases, when their friends could bring themselves to do it, they were shot through the head.

Their mission complete, the men were barely able to walk and pulled themselves through the bush by holding on to tree branches. When they reached a place of temporary safety, they expected to go home to India, if they could manage it.

Instead, Wingate, decided to take the bedraggled remnants of the Chindits not east, towards the Indian border, but west into Japanese territory. "His orders became increasingly opaque," observes one of the survivors. The decision took them beyond the range of air drops and they began eating whatever was at hand, including the mules, which they had grown fond of. One talking head reads a poem he wrote to the mule he had to kill and chokes up with emotion. It's not at all as funny as it may sound.

Finally ordered to return, Wingate decided to break his force up into units of about thirty men and told them to make their way either back to India or north to the safety of China. Either way, it was a walk of some one thousand torturous miles through jungles and over mountains, without additional food or supplies.

Of all the Chindits, about a thousand were killed, captured, or died of sickness. The six hundred who returned (as much as four months after they'd left) were so debilitated they never saw action again. The survivors were polished up and marched through Delhi, cheered as the heroes they were. Wingate was promoted to major general before dying in an air crash.

What a story!

If you'd like to watch some feature films that are loosely based on the Chindits, try to find "Objective Burma" or "Merrill's Marauders," the difference being that Americans do it instead of Brits. Errol Flynn has never been braver.

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