A biography of Orde Charles Wingate, a charismatic and eccentric World War II general. Wingat was born into a fundamentalist Christian sect and raised in the Cromwellian tradition of Sword and Bible. His overriding passion was for Zionism, a cause embraced when posted to British-ruled Palestine in 1936. There he raised the Special Night Squads, an irregular force which decimated Arab rebel bands and taught a future generation of Israeli generals (including Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin) how to fight. He led many campaigns including a guerrilla-sttyle force into Italian occupied Ethiopia, where he was instrumental in restoring Emperor Haile Selassie to the throne. The campaigns he is best known for were those conducted behind the lines in Burma with his Chindit force, shattering the myth of Japanese invincibility in that theatre and boosting Allied spirits...