Date of birth:

February 26th, 1903 (Naini Tal, India)

Date of death:

March 24th, 1944 (Burma)

Buried on:

Arlington National Cemetery

Service number:

27013

Nationality:

British

Orde Wingate, son of an Army Colonel and nephew of Sir Reginald Wingate, Governor-General of Sudan and third out of seven children, was born into a strict Christian family.
Wingate attended the spartan secondary school Charterhouse after which he was accepted to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. He was subsequently commissioned as an artillery officer.
Wingate served with the Sudan defense force (1928–33) and on special duty in Palestine (1936–39) where he first used guerrilla tactics against Arabs with his Special Night Squads. He was awarded a DSO for his actions and tactics but was withdrawn from Palestine by his superiors when they saw that Wingate, highly relgious as he was, became too much personal involved with political issues there. This could endanger in their opinion the British interests in Palestine.
In World War II, although only a major, he commanded the British and African troops who defeated the numerically superior Italians from Ethiopia and restored Emperor Haile Selassie to the throne.
Wingate was subsequently sent to India where he trained and led a force of raiders into Japanese-held Burma for a period of seven months (1943). His guerrillas became known as the "Chindits" or "Wingate's raiders." He was made a major general and placed in command of a larger army, which was flown into Burma, but he was killed in an airplane accident two weeks after this operation began when his B-25 crashed in north Assam, Burma. Initially his remains were buried at the crash site. In April 1947 his remains and those of other victims of the crash, were moved to the British Military Cemetery in Imphal, India. In November 1950 all the remains were reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, as the mass of the victims were Americans.

Do you have more information about this person? Inform us!

Period:

Second World War (1939-1945)

Rank:

Major

Unit:

Royal Regiment of Artillery

Awarded on:

April 1st, 1941

Citation:
"For distinguished services in the Middle East during the period August, 1939, to November, 1940."

Period:

Second World War (1939-1945)

Rank:

Acting Colonel

Unit:

Royal Regiment of Artillery

Awarded on:

December 30th, 1941

Period:

Second World War (1939-1945)

Rank:

Temporary Brigadier

Unit:

Royal Regiment of Artillery (Aberdeen)

Awarded on:

August 5th, 1943

• - Supplement to The London Gazette Issue 35120 published on the 28 March 1941
  - Second Supplement to The London Gazette Issue 35396 published on the 26 December 1941
  - Supplement to The London Gazette Issue 36120 published on the 3 August 1943
  - Orde Wingate
  - King's College London - Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
  

Helaas geen map gevonden.