Wingate ' s view Sir: If Byron Farwell, whoever he is, chooses
to say in a book that Orde Wingate was a sour religious maniac with a grossly inflated reputation who neither admired nor trusted the Gurkhas, he merely aligns himself with the brave ignoramuses who nearly lost the Burma War against the hnumerically inferior Japanese, and who ave been trying to justify themselves ever se. But why does Richard West (book eview, 31 March) bark so excitedly in favour of his opinion? While Adjutant of a Gurkha battalion in Wingate's brigade, and subsequently a staff officer at his advanced „,149. I was in a fair position to notice Orde Wingate's view of Gurkhas. I would say he was nervous of the whole Indian Army, not so much because of their troops as because Of the Prim obstructiveness to which many of their officers had already dedicated themselves. But it so happens that he made a.11 exception of the Gurkhas, and at the thane .of his death had several battalions happily under his command as fighting men (not muleteers, Mr West, though we all lived with mules). 'Sour' is not a word I
would use of him. 'Religious maniac', possibly: but brilliantly able to infect others with the mania that mattered. By the way, the 'guerrilla bands' Wingate commanded when he was killed numbered a double-size division. Some guerrilla bands!
Paul Griffin
1 Strickland Place, Southwold, Suffolk
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