“Mad Jack” Churchill enjoyed danger so much that he fought World War II with arrows and a broadsword — that’s him on the far right, leading a training exercise in Scotland.
“Any officer who goes into action without his sword,” he said, “is improperly dressed.”
Churchill charged through the whole war this way — he’s the only British soldier to fell an enemy with a longbow — and yet he lived to be 90. He died peacefully in Surrey in 1996.
reblogged from futility closet via 3Z
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March 10, 2010 at 10:42 pm
I’ve definitely heard of the “without sword is improperly dressed” before, but I’m uncertain if it was Mad Jack, either way the photo is a classic!
“Supreme Courage” by Peter De La Billiere tells of all those that have won a VC and recounts the career of an officer in WWII who refused to carry a rifle and instead carried a rucksack of grenades and a pistol. While his platoon kept the enemy pinned down he would crawl forward to the pill boxes/machine gunners and throw grenades and storm the position with his pistol. It proved quite successful until he inevitably got caught out by it in Italy and lost his life as a result.
March 14, 2010 at 7:40 pm
I imagine “without sword is improperly dressed” is a very old expression if my history lessons are anything to go by. And by history lessons I mean my box set of Sharpe 🙂