Jack Churchill

Alec, of a family long settled at Deddington, Oxfordshire, had been District Engineer in the Ceylon Civil Service, in which his father, John Fleming Churchill (1829–1894), had also served.

Churchill was born in Colombo, British Ceylon, to Alec Fleming Churchill (1876–1961), later of Hove, East Sussex, and Elinor Elizabeth, daughter of John Alexander Bond Bell, of Kelnahard, County Cavan, Ireland, and of Dimbula, Ceylon.

John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill, (16 September 1906 – 8 March 1996) was a British Army officer.

Nicknamed "Fighting Jack Churchill" and "Mad Jack", he fought in the Second World War with a longbow, a basket-hilted Scottish broadsword, and a set of bagpipes.

Soon after Jack's birth, the family returned to Dormansland, Surrey, where his younger brother, Thomas Bell Lindsay Churchill (1907–1990), was born.

In 1910, the Churchills moved to British Hong Kong when Alec Churchill was appointed as Director of Public Works there; he also served as a member of the Executive Council.

The Churchills' third and youngest son, Robert Alec Farquhar Churchill, later a lieutenant in the Royal Navy and Fleet Air Arm, was born in Hong Kong in 1911.

The family returned to England in 1917.

Churchill was educated at King William's College on the Isle of Man.

He used his archery and bagpipe talents to play a small role in the 1924 film The Thief of Bagdad and also appeared in the 1938 film A Yank at Oxford.

He graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1926 and served in Burma with the Manchester Regiment.

He enjoyed riding a motorbike in Burma.

Churchill left the army in 1936 and worked as a newspaper editor in Nairobi, Kenya, and as a male model.

He took second place in the 1938 military piping competition at the Aldershot Tattoo.

In 1939, he represented Great Britain at the World Archery Championships in Oslo.

Churchill resumed his commission after Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 and was assigned to the Manchester Regiment, which was sent to France in the British Expeditionary Force.

In May 1940, Churchill and some of his men ambushed a German patrol near L'Épinette (near Richebourg, Pas-de-Calais).

Churchill gave the signal to attack by raising his broadsword.

A common story is that Churchill killed a German with a longbow in that action.

However, Churchill later said that his bows had been crushed by a lorry earlier in the campaign.

After fighting at Dunkirk, he volunteered for the Commandos.

On one occasion, a general who had commented on his weaponry, Churchill is said to have replied "Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed."

Jack's younger brother, Thomas Churchill, also served with and led a commando brigade during the war.

After the war, Thomas wrote a book, Commando Crusade, that details some of the brothers' experiences during the war.

Churchill was second in command of No. 3 Commando in Operation Archery, a raid on the German garrison at Vågsøy, Norway, on 27 December 1941.

As the ramps fell on the first landing craft, he leapt forward from his position playing "March of the Cameron Men" on his bagpipes, before throwing a grenade and charging into battle.

For his actions at Dunkirk and Vågsøy, Churchill received the Military Cross.

Their youngest brother, Robert, also known as 'Buster', served in the Royal Navy and was killed in action in 1942.

In July 1943, as commanding officer, he led No. 2 Commando from their landing site at Catania, in Sicily, with his trademark Scottish broadsword slung around his waist, a longbow and arrows around his neck and his bagpipes under his arm, which he also did in the landings at Salerno.

Leading 2 Commando, Churchill was ordered to capture a German observation post outside the town of Molina, controlling A Pass leading down to the Salerno beachhead.

With the help of a corporal, he infiltrated the town, captured the post and took 42 prisoners including a mortar squad.

Churchill led the men and prisoners back down the pass, with the wounded being carried on carts pushed by German prisoners.

He commented that it was "an image from the Napoleonic Wars".

He received the Distinguished Service Order for leading that action at Salerno.

Churchill later walked back to the town to retrieve his sword, which he had lost in hand-to-hand combat with the German regiment.

On his way there, he encountered a disoriented American patrol mistakenly walking towards enemy lines.

When the NCO in command of the patrol refused to turn around, Churchill told them that he was going his own way and that he would not come back for a "bloody third time".

As part of Maclean Mission (Macmis), in 1944, he led the Commandos in Yugoslavia to support Josip Broz Tito's Partisans from the Adriatic island of Vis.

In May he was ordered to raid the German-held island of Brač.

He organized a "motley army" of 1,500 Partisans, 43 Commando and one troop from 40 Commando for the raid.