Brilliant and heroic World War Two jungle warfare expert, Major-General Orde Wingate DSO with two bars, was an eccentric even by British standards. What were some of his strange and unusual mannerisms?
Answer: He wore an out of date Wolseley ‘Pith’ helmet; sometimes had an alarm clock on his wrist rather than a wristwatch, gave briefings in his tent completely naked; liked to snack on raw onions and had a deliberate casualness about hygiene; it was said he kept a jungle-filthy uniform for special occasions. When he was killed in a plane crash in 1944, Churchill said that with his death, a ‘man of the highest quality … (had been lost) a bright flame … extinguished.’
Source: Churchill General’s by John Keegan; Major-General Orde Wingate by Royce Wilson
