Maniac

The above word being used in its most positive sense, that is, when describing a British Army officer who fought the whole of World War II with a broadsword and longbow as his personal weapons (!!!).  (Also a set of bagpipes, but let’s not go there.  He wasn’t even Scottish.)

Here’s “Mad Jack” Churchill’s story (watch the video first), and his boring Wikipedia entry.   “War hero” doesn’t even begin to describe a man who was decorated four times for bravery under fire.  He should have got the V.C. and probably would have, except that the world ran out of wars for him to fight.

Read and watch it all.

4 comments

  1. Well of course he wore a kilt. The Army doesn’t make trousers big enough for balls like that.

  2. But did he march in high heels and take lessons in transdiversity? Thats very important for kickass soldiers you know.

  3. Mad Jack Churchill carried a longbow and a broadsword onto the beach, but he wasn’t the one who wore a kilt on D-Day and had his piper play on Sword Beach.
    According to various sources on the internet, it was not Mad Jack Churchill, but Simon Fraser, the 15th Lord Lovat who was in the First Commandos. Bill Millin was his staff piper and played for the unit in England before the invasion. Lord Lovat asked him to play the bagpipes during the invasion in full Scottish uniform to keep the spirits of the troops up. When he questioned Simon Fraser, regarding this, Fraser tells him: “You and I are Scots and it is an English decree, it does not concern us!”

    The Germans saw him and, thinking he went insane from the stress of battle, refrained from shooting him.

    I have a pen and ink drawing that I have framed and hanging in my home to this day, drawn by an artist named Sutherland; the piper is wearing trousers because he did not know of Lord Lovat’s insistence on proper uniforms, but if he had, the original commissioner of the drawing would not have rejected it and I would not have gotten it for the asking.

    https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/story-mad-highland-piper-world-war-ii-1480752
    And Mad Jack, aka Fighting Jack used his longbow and sword to good effect, killing a German Soldier with a broadhead arrow during the 1940 campaign.

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