An interesting man

[Botnst]

Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Daniel Wintle MC, better known as A.D. Wintle, (30 September 1897–11 May 1966) was a British military officer in the 1st The Royal Dragoons who served in the First and Second World Wars.

The son of a diplomat, Alfred Daniel Wintle was born in Mariopoul, South Russia. In 1901, the family went to live in Dunkirk, and he was subsequently educated in France and Germany, becoming fluent in both French and German.

First World War

On the outbreak of war, the 16-year-old Wintle was in Dunkirk and claimed to have ‘irregularly attached’ himself to Commander Samson’s famous armoured cars, witnessing on one occasion some Uhlans being shot up in Belgium.

AD was desperate for some action. In the summer of 1915, his father finally agreed to his son’s early entry into the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. He managed to get himself ‘passed out’ and commissioned within four months. Within a week he was at the front. On his first night, a shell burst near him, splashing over him the entrails of his sergeant, to whom he had just been introduced. Wintle later admitted to being petrified. As the bombardment continued around him, he dealt with his fear by standing to attention and saluting. As he later wrote ‘Within thirty seconds I was able to become again an Englishman of action and to carry out calmly the duties I had been trained to perform’.

The incident was typical both of a series of amazing escapes and his pride at being an Englishman, as opposed to being born "a chimpanzee or a flea, or a Frenchman or a German". He saw action at Ypres, the Somme, La Bassée and Festubert, supposedly capturing the village of Vesle single-handed before handing it over to the New Zealanders, who were about to attack it in force. His luck finally ran out during Third Ypres in 1917. As he helped manhandle an 18pdr across a ‘crater-swamp’. The gun carriage wheel hit an unexploded shell and he woke up in a field hospital minus his left eye, one kneecap and several fingers. His right eye was so damaged that he had to wear a monocle for the rest of his life. Wintle was still only nineteen years old.

Wintle was sent back to England to convalesce by the ‘infernal quacks’. It appeared that his war was over. Unsurprisingly, Wintle had other ideas. He was soon planning his escape from the Southern General Hospital back to the front, bizarrely choosing to attend a nurses only dance in their billets, disguised as a nurse, before finally making his escape. He recorded, however, that his monocle was a dead give-away, and that the particularly unpleasant Matron was suitably unimpressed with his antics.

He then entrained for France with a warrant signed by a friend of his father’s and had a ‘moderately successful year of action' with 119th Battery, 22nd Brigade, RFA. His MC was gazetted in the London Gazette of 2 April 1919 and the citation was published in the London Gazette of 10 December 1919. It is interesting to note that according to the obituary he received his MC in the mail the exact day when it was announced in the London Gazette.

The citation read:
For marked gallantry and initiative on 4th Nov. 1918 near Jolimentz. He went forward with the infantry to obtain information and personally accounted for 35 prisoners. On 9th Nov. he took forward his section well in front of the infantry and throughout the day he showed initiative of a very high order and did excellent work.
Wintle later recalled that he could not remember anything about either incident.

He is said to have regarded the period between the First and Second World Wars as "intensely boring".

World War II

When, in September 1939, World War Two began he tried everything to persuade his superiors to allow him to go to France.

When they refused he planned to resign his commission and form his own army "to take the war to the Hun".

Wintle then attempted to steal an aircraft (with which he intended to invade France) and upon being prevented, he threatened a bureaucratic officer with a gun. For this he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. On the way to his prison, the Lieutenant colonel was escorted by a young soldier via the train. The soldier is reported to have lost the arrest warrant and, disgusted by this, Wintle declared the man incompetent, told him to wait where he was and went to get a new warrant. Seeing that there was no other officers of higher rank at the warrant office, he signed the paper himself.

Of his time in the Tower, he wrote:
'My life in the Tower had begun. How different it was from what I had expected. Officers at first cut me dead, thinking that I was some kind of traitor; but when news of my doings leaked out they could not do enough for me. My cell became the most popular meeting place in the garrison and I was as well cared for as if I had been at the Ritz. I would have a stroll in the moat after breakfast for exercise. Then sharp at eleven Guardsman McKie, detailed as my servant, would arrive from the officers' mess with a large whisky and ginger ale. He would find me already spick and span, for though I have a great regard for the Guards, they have not the gift to look after a cavalry officer's equipment. The morning would pass pleasantly. By noon visitors would begin to arrive. One or two always stayed to lunch. They always brought something with them. I remember one particularly succulent duck in aspic - it gave me indigestion - and a fine box of cigars brought by my family doctor. Tea time was elastic and informal. Visitors dropped in at intervals, usually bringing along bottles which were uncorked on the spot. I don't recall that any of them contained any tea. Dinner, on the other hand, was strictly formal. I dined sharp at eight and entertained only such guests as had been invited beforehand. After a few days of settling in. I was surprised to find that - as a way of life- being a prisoner in the Tower of London had its points.'

When his hearing finally was held, the government - embarrassed by his accusations - dropped all charges, bar one and he was formally reprimanded and sent abroad - but not to France.

He then formally resigned his commission and joined the Secret Service, where his first posting was to France where, in 1941, he was arrested as a spy and imprisoned by the Vichy French.

He called the entire garrison together (including Maurice Molia, the commandant) and informed them that he was going to escape and get back to Britain. He added that anyone who called himself a Frenchman would follow him. He then went on a hunger strike for two weeks to protest at the "slovenly appearance of the guards who are not fit to guard an English officer!" before slipping over the wall of the castle. As Molia said on Wintle's This Is Your Life programme in 1959, shortly after the escape "because of Wintle's dauntless determination to maintain English standards and his constant challenge to our authority," the entire Garrison of 280 men had gone over to the Resistance.


Post War Years

He once was so furious about the lack of first class carriages on a train, that he took over the engine and refused to move until more carriages appeared.
Wintle made legal history when he fought a legal action against a dishonest solicitor named Nye. To publicise the case, he served time in prison after forcing Nye to remove his trousers. In the final stage, Wintle ran out of money and had to present the case himself. He became the first non-lawyer to achieve a unanimous verdict in his favour in the House of Lords.