Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
Fire in the Night: Wingate of Burma, Ethiopia and Zion
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Fire in the Night: Wingate of Burma, Ethiopia and Zion (Paperback)

by C Smith (Author), J Bierman (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


6 used from £1.09

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Jungle Soldier: The True Story of Freddy Spencer Chapman

Jungle Soldier: The True Story of Freddy Spencer Chapman

by Brian Moynahan
4.5 out of 5 stars (15)  £9.20
Defiance [DVD] [2008]

Defiance [DVD] [2008]

DVD ~ Daniel Craig
4.0 out of 5 stars (91)  £4.98
Food for Free (Collins GEM)

Food for Free (Collins GEM)

by Richard Mabey
4.5 out of 5 stars (51)  £3.49
The World At War - Complete TV Series (11 Disc Box Set) [DVD]

The World At War - Complete TV Series (11 Disc Box Set) [DVD]

DVD ~ Laurence Olivier
4.7 out of 5 stars (68)  £22.18
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 200 pages
  • Publisher: Pan; New edition edition (9 Feb 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0330367552
  • ISBN-13: 978-0330367554
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 13 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 549,131 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #47 in  Books > History > Countries & Regions > Africa > Eastern > Ethiopia
    #54 in  Books > History > Countries & Regions > Asia > South East Asia > Burma (Myanmar)
    #61 in  Books > History > Military History > Battles & Campaigns > Burma

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Product Description

Orde Charles Wingate. Winston Churchill thought him a military genius; others considered him greatly over-rated; a few even thought him mad. His overriding passion was for Zionism, a cause which he embraced when posted to British-ruled Palestine in 1936. There he raised the Special Night Squads, an irregular force which decimated Arab rebel bands and taught a future generation of Israeli generals (including Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin) how to fight. In 1941, Wingate led another guerrilla-style force into Italian-occupied Ethiopia and was instrumental in restoring Emperor Haile Selassie to his throne. But his most famous campaign was conducted behind enemy lines in Burma, where his Chindits shattered the myth of Japanese invincibility in jungle fighting. A brilliant maverick, Wingate was a difficult if not impossible subordinate. He was also - as this riveting new study reveals - an inspiring leader.

Tag this product

 (What's this?)
Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.
Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags
 

Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One great read begets two, 21 Nov 2002
By Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
Some time ago, I read QUARTERED SAFE OUT HERE, the wartime memoirs of George MacDonald Fraser concerning the time he spent in the Other Ranks of the British imperial army that recaptured Burma from the Japanese in World War II. In his book, Fraser mentions the high regard the troops had for the army commander, William Slim. I subsequently read DEFEAT INTO VICTORY by Field-Marshal Viscount Slim, a personal account by the man who commanded the Fourteenth Indian Army during its bitter retreat from, and its glorious return march through, Burma. In his volume, Slim mentions the unorthodox British general Orde Wingate's contributions to the Japanese defeat in Southeast Asia. Thus, FIRE IN THE NIGHT, Wingate's biography.

Co-authored by John Bierman and Colin Smith, FIRE IN THE NIGHT is the immensely readable life story of an incredibly complex man. In a nutshell, after several brief chapters on Wingate's early life, the narrative sequentially covers his postings in Palestine, Ethiopia and, finally, India/Burma, during which time (1936-1944) he rose in rank from Lieutenant to Major General. In the British Mandate of Palestine, Orde became an ardent Zionist while fighting Arab "gangs" with Special Night Squads, the armed detachments of British regulars and Jews which he himself brought into being. In Ethiopia, his was a key role in the British victorious military effort to drive the Italians from the country and return Haile Selassie to the thrown. In India, Wingate's ultimate triumph before an untimely death was to conceive, form, train and deploy the Third Indian Division, the "Chindits", as a Special Force to insert behind Japanese lines in Northern Burma to destroy the enemy's means of communication and supply.

To my mind, the strength of this book is that it gives the reader an excellent overview of Wingate the man and soldier without getting bogged down in an overabundance of detail. Certainly, the subject of Wingate's character, obsessions and eccentricities could fill volumes. He was admired and loved by the men he literally led into battle. (He drove them hard, but he drove himself even harder.) Conversely, he was loathed by many of his officer peers and superiors for his arrogance, outspokenness, rudeness and personal slovenliness. (He was on record as calling some of his more Blimpish superiors "military apes".) But, he also had his admirers in high places, most notably Winston Churchill and Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Supreme Commander of all allied forces in Southeast Asia.

Perhaps the most endearing of Wingate's traits were his eccentricities. For example, he carried a wind-up alarm clock on his person because he considered watches unreliable. And then there was his attitude to personal nudity best illustrated by an incident during the wide press acclaim following his first Chindit campaign. An Australian correspondent invited to the general's hotel room in Delhi wrote:

"I found him sitting naked on his bed, eyes buried deep in a book. He hardly glanced up as I entered and rather gruffly asked what I wanted. ... He wasn't interested in me or my requirements, but seemed most excited about the book he was reading ... a critical commentary of Emily Bronte and her work."

Can you imagine those media hogs of the Second World War - Patton, Montgomery and MacArthur - doing that?

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A First Class Biography, 21 Mar 2007
When Major Mike Calvert met the strange brigadier sitting in his chair the name Wingate meant nothing to him. When Calvert Pointed out it was Calvert's chair, Wingate moved aside at once. 'Tired as I was', wrote Calvert later, 'I soon began to realize this was a man I could work for and follow.' It was a common reaction to this truly extraordinary soldier. No other, except perhaps Montgomery, has generated such controversy. It is practically impossible to find a dispassionate judgement; he was either loathed or worshipped. Over the years Wingate has had numerous biographers and, although occasionally prone to journalistic hyperbole, John Bierman and Colin Smith's Fire in the Night is the most recent and thorough, and is very well written.

In contrast, he came under vitriolic attack in the 1950s from the official historian, S. Woodburn Kirby, who had been Deputy Chief of General Staff in Delhi in 1943, and had numerous run-ins with Wingate over the latter's demands for men, supplies and everything else. Wingate then demanded that Mountbatten sack Kirby 'for iniquitous and unpatriotic conduct'. Kirby had his revenge in an astonishing three-page passage describing Wingate as 'petulant', `obsessed' and 'having neither the knowledge, stability nor balance to make a great commander'. Other biographers have since taken up the cudgels on Wingate's behalf, and this book represents a non-interested attempt to set the record straight, or at least as straight as possible with such a contentious figure.

The men who served under him were similarly divided, and many hated him. But Private Charles Aves recalled that Wingate 'exuded an aura of power. And yet he didn't speak in that manner, he spoke quietly and convincingly ... He realigned our perceptions of what was possible for ordinary people like ourselves ... He was a great man.'
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject























i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.