Gideon.

This is coolbert:

 From that previous blog entry the person of Orde Wingate most controversial and unconventional. Serving with distinction during World War Two [WW2] Wingate meeting an untimely death in a glider crash, David Ben Gurion having made the decision to offer the command of the Israeli army if and when Wingate had survived the war so highly thought of was Wingate by the Jews of the Palestinian Mandate.

Wingate a religious man with a unconventional religious outlook AND BELIEVING HIMSELF DIVINELY ORDAINED AND INSPIRED, A CHRISTIAN ZIONIST WHOSE BELIEF IN THE REDEMPTION OF THE JEWS WAS EXTREMELY STRONG.

This makes for a sound and stable mind? A lot of folks including brother officers of the British Army did not think so. Wingate was recognized for ways as an "odd type" but also being very talented and for the most was tolerated regardless of his peculiarities.

Further evidence of the mental outlook of Wingate obvious when one considers the military unit under the command of the man [Wingate] that distinguished itself during what Churchill called the "Abyssinian Campaign". This unit called by Wingate the Gideon Force a unit of unconventional fighters the irregular waging war in Ethiopia and most successful!!

"Formed by then Lieutenant Colonel Orde Wingate in January 1941, the Gideon Force operated under the direction of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) . . . Comprised of 50 British officers and 20 British non-commissioned officers in charge of 800 members of the Sudan Frontier Battalion and 800 Ethiopian (Abyssinian) troops,"

That large battalion in combat with a defeating much large and well-armed Italian army units, Wingate demonstrating a skill that established his repute at the highest levels of the British government [Churchill included!].

"the Gideon Force fought a daring guerrilla campaign and succeeded not only in establishing Haile Selassie in a base at Gojjam, Ethiopia, but also in escorting him to the very capital of the country, Addis Ababa, and returning him to power"

That name Gideon Force obviously chosen in an intentional manner, Wingate having an intimate knowledge of the Bible and thoroughly aware of the story of the Hebrew Judge Gideon. Wingate saw himself as Gideon and the unit under his command as those three hundred ancient Hebrews, fighting an unconventional battle against a numerically superior foe and emerging victorious. At that exact moment Wingate became Gideon!!

Gideon also as described in the Bible an unconventional combatant, the irregular waging guerrilla warfare in ancient Judea, in battle with the Midianites, the Hebrew much outnumbered but using that correct and inspired combination ot tactics and stratagem able to defeat and rout and much numerically superior enemy.

That specially selected and highly motivated small combat unit able to defeat the much more powerful enemy the foe consisting of lesser men under the command of lesser men!! Those Hebrew equipped with in addition to their swords torches, jars and trumpets. The psychological overwhelming at night the physical advantage of the Midianites not sufficing.

From the Holy Bible Gideon as instructing his troops:

"'Watch me [Gideon],' he [Gideon] told them. 'Follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, then from all around the camp blow yours and shout, 'For the Lord and for Gideon.' ' .... The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, 'A sword for the Lord and Gideon!' While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled. When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords." (Judges 7:17–22, NIV Bible)

Wingate did have for better or worse messianic ideas and a "complex" best described? Again for better or worse that was the man, talented and adept and skillful, charismatic and so in a way not often found in one man!!

coolbert.