What kind of man fights in 4 wars spanning over 4 decades, sustaining injuries that result in the self-amputation of two fingers, the loss of one hand, an eye, and a lung; has his plane shot down, lives in captivity for over 7 months – and despite all of the above fondly reminisces that “frankly I had enjoyed the war”?
The kind of man that is Adrian Carton de Wiart.
The life of the ultra-wealthy Belgian Aristocracy that he was born into, clearly wasn’t the life young Adrian wanted; which is probably why he ran away from his Catholic boarding school, and like so many great war heroes start out, headed straight to the nearest British Army recruitment office. Here he would go through the late 1800’s equivalent of convincing the recruitment officer his name was ‘McLovin’ which bought Adrian a ticket to his first war – The Second Boer war. Here McLovin would lead bayonet charges against Boer Kommandos and get shot in the groin and lung – substantial injuries that got him sent back to Britain. He was commissioned as an actual officer in the British army until the war ended in 1902. From here he went to Oxford University, married an Austrian Countess whom he had 2 daughters with, and lived as an Aristocrat.
This life of privilege however, was never the life Adrian wanted; But luckily for him, the dawn of a new age of war was near.
At the outbreak of WW1 Adrian spared no time in ditching his wife and daughters (the whole “I’m just going up the road for some cigarettes” sketch – but much posher) to immediately re-enlisted back into the British army. Due to his previous experiences of combat, he was assigned to the East Africa Camel Corps. Tasked with quelling a rebellion in British Somaliland, led by a man who the British Dubbed “the Mad Mullah” (Mohammad Bin Abdullah, who castrated his own fighters for cowardice) De Wiart would essentially lead Camelback Commando raids against enemy positions; and it was here while scaling the walls of enemy forts with a revolver and committing multiple acts of badassery that he would get shot in the face twice, losing his eye and part of his ear. Only in the eyes (or eye) of a triple hard bastard could this be taken as good news, but bearing in mind Adrian was the kind of man that celebrated life-changing injuries and disastrous news with copious amounts of wine, it comes as no surprise that this news was music to his ears (or ear).
After arriving in France, Adrian would have his hand shattered by German artillery during the Second Battle of Ypres. Worried he would miss out on any action he went to a field hospital to get two of the fingers amputated. The doctors refused, so the one-eyed commander amputated them himself, which didn’t matter too much because later on in the year the whole hand needed to be amputated; Just in time for the battle of the Somme.
Later on, in 1916 he was leading the 8th Gloucestershire Regiment in a Bayonet charge during the Battle of Boiselle when 3 other unit commanders were killed. Adrian then took charge of all 4 units – running up and down the lines barking orders, successfully holding off the German counter-attack as bullets whizzed past his eye patch. For this, he was awarded the Victoria Cross, an award he humbly made no mention of in his memoirs, claiming “it had been won by the 8th Glosters, for every man has done as much as I have”.
Adrian went on to fight through the rest of the war. In total, he got shot/blown up 8 separate times whilst leading infantry into battle – including what should have been a fatal gunshot wound to the back of the head. When asked about his time during the bloodiest war in human history he replied, “Frankly I enjoyed the war”.
In 1920, Adrian was sent to Poland to help advise the crown. His time here was pretty average really – He survived 2 plane crashes, he ran a gun smuggling ring to bring weapons into Poland to help fight the communists, participated in a duel against Carl Gustav (future overall leader of Finnish forces in WW2), shot his way out of Warsaw on an express train as a band of Cossack cavalrymen tried to arrest and execute him. Aside from the above Adrian would spend his time hunting ducks with one arm and a shotgun on his rather large estate on the Polish border.
However, Adrian’s duck hunting days were numbered, as Europe yet again was about to be plunged into times of war.
When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 and blew up Adrian’s estate there was only one thing for it. Whilst getting strafed by German Stukas he made his way out of Poland; and despite being a British/Belgian man with one hand and an eye patch, travelled through Romania on a fake passport (probably under the name McLovin) to finally reach British soil again. Here, yet again he would reveal to British authorities his name wasn’t McLovin and re-enlist in the British army; and now with his retirement on the back-burner, he would lead British Commando raids against the fascist invaders of Europe.
In 1940 Adrian would lead a raid into Norway, to re-take Trondheim from the Nazis. Things didn’t really go to plan, and when the promised naval/air support and reinforcements never showed up it was time for De Wiart and his merry band of lunatics to do a runner. Chased by German ski troops through the snowy mountains of Norway, whilst being strafed by the Luftwaffe and shelled by German destroyers this band of warriors actually made it back to an extraction point with the Royal Navy to get back to England – Just in time for Adrian’s 60th Birthday.
In 1941, appointed by Winston Churchill himself, General Adrian Carton de Wiart would lead the British mission in Yugoslavia. Unfortunately for the General and his RAF crew the plane crashed in the Mediterranean ocean. Helping an injured comrade the 60-year-old General along with his RAF crew swam to shore. A Libyan shore. A Libyan shore that was unfortunately held by fascists of the Italian variety. Adrian was thrown into captivity into the POW camp at Vincigliata Castle. With not a single duck given since 1899 he proceeded to dig an escape tunnel over a 7-month period, which he and 6 others would use to escape their fascist captors. Unfortunately, it turned out that being a one-handed 60-year-old wearing an eye patch, as well as being distinctively British with a slight Belgian undertone… Well, clearly, he was swiftly recaptured. Fortunately, the Italians had decided they wanted to switch sides – and in war, what better bargaining chip than a General?
Having been back on British soil less than a month Adrian was sent to China as the special envoy to the Chinese leader. During this final four-year period, he would survive yet another plane crash. On his way back to Britain and actual retirement he stopped off in Rangoon, where he drunkenly fell down some stairs and broke his back.
Adrian Carton de Wiart would go on to write up his life story in his memoirs, hilariously titled “Happy Odyssey”. Winston Churchill even wrote the foreword for it.
Adrian would finally pass away in 1963, at the age of 83, having spent his final years fishing and in peace.
