Orde Wingate: A Man of Genius quotes Churchill in the subtitle to guide a biography of an expert in unconventional warfare, cut down before his time in a plane crash in 1944. This book is best when it describes the conformist weirdness of the interwar British Army, and Wingate's quixotic crusade to be an Individual in this environment. His early career, in the regiment, in Sudan, and in Mandatory Palestine, are lovingly detailed. The picture that emerges is of an iconoclastic and deeply moral soldier, who's immense (indeed, maniac) energy drives his men to accomplish great things. This came to a peak in with the campaign to liberate Ethiopia from the Italians with Gideon Force, a small patriotic band that outfought larger Italian units to restore Emperor Haile Selassie to the throne. Next, Wingate was assigned to the Burma theater, but the Chindit deep penetration units have a more mixed record, suffering heavy casualties for unclear results.

Wingate clearly was a man of great vision, but it's unclear if that vision actually matched up to reality. His talent for finding highly placed patrons was undercut by fighting against his immediate superiors, equals, and subordinate officers. His career might be encapsulated in miniature in one incident in Palestine. More or less on his own authority, Wingate had created a group of Jewish Special Night Squads to fight Arab gangs through night ambush. This went great, until a combined operation wound up with Wingate ambushing himself and getting shot five times with a Bren gun.

This is a strong biography, but a weak military history. As an aside, my favorite "wtf moment" was apparently a weekly ritual in British Artillery Officer school was a Friday night dance, where the Seniors wore full dress, the first years wore pajamas, and then the first years were beaten. Did the whole British army run on weird sadomasochism?