Mad Jack Churchill

Colonel Jack Churchill was a British military Commando who went into World War II armed with a claymore sword, an English longbow, and a set of bagpipes, and led all his cover special ops operations by pointing his sword at the enemy and screaming the word "COMMMMANNDOOOOO!!!!" as loudly as possible. He was a model, an actor, a war hero, and a world-traveling adventurer who fought the Nazis with weaponry that had been obsolete for over a century, was continually awarded with medals of bravery for overcoming impossible odds, escaped two different concentration camps, and spent the twilight years of his life as a surfing and skydiving instructor. Strap in for this one folks, because this one is a non-stop adrenaline ride.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Badass of the Week is an iHeartRadio podcast produced by
High five Content. It is a quiet, cold night as
the small squadron of assault boats zip across the waves
towards their objective. On board the lead landing craft, a
platoon of hardened soldiers waits nervously. They are heavily armed.

(00:22):
They're grim visages, covered in face paints of black, green
and olive drab. Some of them smoke, others pray. The
rest check their ammunition belts and weapon actions. One final time.
None of them talk. The mission is dangerous, but these
men are trained for it. They are members of a

(00:43):
newly formed elite military unit created by the British Army
Special Services to combat the Nazi menace that now grips
all of Europe. They are a new type of military unit,
one trained for special operations deep behind enemy lines. Special forces.
They are known as commandos. Their target is visible up ahead,

(01:07):
the imposing German Coastal Defense Fortress on Maloy Island, a
formidable bastion overseeing the frigid waters off the coast of Norway.
The hulking batteries of naval artillery canyons hang quiet in
the night silhouetted only by the moon, the stars, and
a lone searchlight that lazily circles from some distant tower.

(01:29):
The commandos are outnumbered. They're tasked with attacking uphill into
a fortified enemy position. But these guys are the best
of the best, highly trained hands, selected from the toughest
soldiers in the British Empire, and they have the element
of surprise on their side. The mission is simple, get in,
hit them hard, and overwhelm the enemy before they can organize.

(01:51):
The unit's commander stands alone at the front of the
lead boat. He'll be the first man under the beach,
leading from the front, as he has always done. The
war is still in its first year, but he is
already a decorated hero, with multiple commendations for bravery earned
on the battlefields of northern France. He is daring, fearless, bold,

(02:12):
a dashing figure in the image of the Victorian commanders
of old, though instead of the classic red coat of
a British soldier, he instead wears the dark green khaki
of a Royal commando. The landing craft hits the beach
with a thumb. The steel assault ramp slams down into
the soft sand. Lieutenant Colonel Jack Churchill boldly steps out

(02:34):
into the surf and quickly assesses the situation, and then,
in the quiet of night, under the cover of darkness,
he gives the go code for his squad to commence
the operation. He pulls out a four foot long Scottish broadsword,
points it at the coastal guns on the bluff above,

(02:55):
and screams commander. Then he pulls out bagpipes and begins
to play as his men charge ahead. Hello, and welcome
back to Badass of the Week. My name is Ben

(03:16):
Thompson and I am here as always with my co hosts,
doctor Pat Larish. Pat, how are you doing today?

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I'm doing okay, Ben, how are you?

Speaker 1 (03:23):
I'm doing good. I'm pretty happy because we are going
to talk about one of my favorite, my favorite characters
from World War Two. This is a person I've written
about on my site before that and in my book,
and I just I like this character a lot, and
it's a really fun story and I'm super excited about it.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, and Ben, when you suggested this episode, you said
like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Hey,
let's talk about Churchill in World War Two? And I
thought you meant.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Winston church who I have also written about.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, yeah, yes, we can totally talk about him, But
you meant a different church.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
I did, I meant a different Churchill? Yeah, Like it's
I guess it's kind of funny because this is you know,
Winston Churchill. Of course, totally badass, maybe one of the
most badass world world leaders ever. In my opinion, I
think Churchill's great. I love him. I think he's the
the Teddy Roosevelt of England, and I have written about him.
But this is a different, different character. This is this

(04:24):
is mad Jack Churchill, who is mad.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Jack church is called mad.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Jack Mad I'll tell you something, right, Yeah, mad like crazy,
like mad Jack, like he's gone mad. They also call
him fighting Jack Churchill is another nickname of his. He's
a character.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Sounds like it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
We talked recently about Mustafa Camal At a Turk and
there was a quote we cited in that episode and
the person had said that At a Turk was like
a guy who would come out of another time period,
and I really get that vibe with Jack Churchill as well.
So the go to with Chack is that there is

(05:06):
a photograph at anytime I want to kind of lay
out who this man is and what he's all about.
There is a photograph. It's in black and white, it's
blurry and grainy. It is picture those photographs of soldiers
landing at D Day. So you have one of those
D Day style landing crafts. They are it's ramp is going.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Down, they're plunging forward and there.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Are British soldiers with the very easy to recognize British
World War two helmet. They are running off of the
landing ramp into the surf, charging and at the head
of this formation. And you would miss it if you
don't really look for it, because it's black and white
and grainy, and you'll see pictures where people circle it.

(05:54):
But there's a guy leading them and he's holding a sword.
He's dressed like band of brother he's in a World
War two British uniform, but he's holding a sword and
he's kind of rallying his guys to charge forward. And
that person is mad Jack Churchill. He he's the.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Guy with the sword.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Yes, he is a World War II hero who fought
the war with a broad sword and a long bow
and bagpipes.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
One of these is not like the other, or maybe
all three of these are exactly like one another. You
said he was maybe from a different era or was
more at home in a different era, And okay, broad sword,
long bows, those are both weapons. Actually, now that I
think about it, some people might argue that the bagpipe
itself is a.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Form of weapon sonic weaponry.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeah, it's the heaviest of those three items, which makes
it the weirdest one, and it's the least likely to
be useful in a self defense situation, so it does
kind of ring as a weird one. Yes, yes, yeah, okay, yeah,
So don't turn off just yet if you're a bagpiper,
because I fully intend to use mad Jack Churchill's bagpiping

(07:07):
as a way to illustrate his bad attitude.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Okay, so this guy, he's got a broad sword, a
long bow, and a bagpipe.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
And he's fighting belt fed German machine guns in World
War Two and tanks and mortars and artillery. And we're
gonna see how that goes for him. Here's a you know,
he's the kind of guy that, like I said, he's
from a different time period, and that will come up
a bunch. The picture that I just referenced is it's

(07:35):
a photo taken from a training exercise. It looks like
he's landing at Utah Beach, but from a training exercise,
and they took a picture of it. But he did
do that when he was landing in combat zones as well.
They just didn't have the CNN already on the beach
when the Marines are landing set up back then, he
did do that.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
He had a little more free time and space to
not be worried about getting hit right when you were
doing a training exercise.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, and so, I mean he's the kind of guy
that liked he was an officer. He liked to lead
from the front, and he joined the Special Forces because
that's where all the elite people went. And when he
was undertaking his top secret commando raids, he loved to
pull out his sword and wave it over his head
and scream commando as loud as he could. Because he's

(08:26):
just a from a different time.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
He just that's how you do subtle the and subterfuge
and keeping a low profile as you sneak in in
your top secret mission.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yes, yeah, espionage, Special Operations. First thing in the Special
Operations Manual is screamed the name of your unit as
you're infiltrating enemy positions.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Okay, I'll take notes, but in invisible ink, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
But it's what we said. This guy, this guy stepped
out of the armies of Edward the third and he
have been an ashen for but he instead is in
Normandy and we're going to see how that works out
right after these messages. Jack Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill is

(09:22):
this man's name, and he was born in nineteen oh
six in British Ceylon, which is an island off the
coast of India just kind of a.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Union now known as Sri Lanka. Yes, so a part
of the world that is far away from the British Isles.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
It's not bagpiping country. British Ceylon was not bagpiping country,
or at least Sri Lanka is not really bagpiping country,
although it is when Jack Churchill is there.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah. Yeah, it has its own rich musical tradition, but
just not involving bagpipes, right.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Bagpipes are pretty central to like pretty specific locations. Okay, yeah,
So Jack Churchill was born in nineteen oh six in
British Ceylon and he is his father's British his mother's
side is Irish, but they're living there because his father
is a civil engineer living on the island doing some

(10:18):
work there. They're in Hong Kong after that, but they
eventually make their way back to England, where Jack goes
to school on the Isle of Man, which I just like.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Oh wow, Yeah, the Isle of.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Man, the Isle of Man, which is where you learn
to do man stuff. I guess, I don't know, I'm
not going to don't work.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, and their flag, their flag is.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Flag is amazing. The flag of the Isle of Man
is incredible. It's three armored legs, like kicking in a triangle. Yeah, yeah,
it's amazing. Yeah, it's one of my favorite flags ever.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
It's called a triscal or a triscilion, like there's a
name specifically for that.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Really.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah. Anyway, which probably has no bearing on Jack Churchill's life.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
He completes school on Isle of Man and he goes
to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, which is kind
of the west point of England or of the United Kings.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
And I don't have anything cool to say about their flag.
I'm sure it's.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Great, but yeah, I mean, the Island Man is hard
to beat for flags. As that goes. So he goes
to kind of the big military academy in England and
he graduates in nineteen twenty six and is assigned to
the Manchester Regiment and he's then sent out to Burma,
which is president Yeah, so it was British Burma at

(11:43):
the time, and he's stationed out there where in nineteen
twenty six, we're kind of after World War One. World
War two is not going to happen for another, you know,
fifteen years, so it's kind of calm when he's out there.
So what does he do? This is a thing that
will all so come up with Jack. He does the
military thing, and he likes the military thing. He likes

(12:04):
being in the army. He enjoys it. But when he's
not drilling or preparing or training, he decides he loves
riding motorcycles, which is kind of a new thing in
nineteen twenty six.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, okay, so Ben, you said earlier that he was
from a different era, but he's not completely from a
different era. It seems like he's embracing certain innovations, right,
like motorcycles.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah. There's a weird movie from like the early nineties
with Ed Harris called night Riders and it's about dudes
that dress up in night armor and they joust, but
they ride motorcycles. It's not as good as it sounds
like it would be, but it's worth watching because it's weird.
But that's the vibe again. Has Ed Harris in it, Yeah,
and young Harrison. Yeah, he's great. He's great, and he

(12:48):
makes a movie. It's fun. I recommend it. I cautiously
recommend to that movie.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Okay, yeah, yeah, but if you're in a particular mood,
it will hit the particular do the.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Thing you're gonna look at the cover. Guys wear armor
and they joust on motorcycles, and you know immediately whether
that is a thing that you're interested in or not.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
Well, I guess is it a thing that you're interested
in watching or a thing that you're interested in actually doing.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
I think there's a lot of overlap. Anyway, That's the
vibe I get from Jack Churchill is that he's he
loves he's from this time period of Knights in Armor,
but he also he likes motorcycle riding and as we'll
see later, he likes surfing. So he's gonna he's oh hey, yeah,
So Jack does his tour of duty in Burma and

(13:33):
he leaves the service in nineteen thirty six. At that
point he's served for ten years in the army. He's
risen up through the ranks a little bit. He's kind
of a junior officer. He moves to Nairobi, Kenya, where
he starts working as a newspaper editor.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Oh wow, so he's got geographical range and also as
far as like skills and career moves, he's got range.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah yeah. And so he likes he's a newspaper editor.
And he's also he's really getting into archery and bagpiping,
as we've talked about. He even does a little bit
of acting. He wants to do some some movie stuff,
so he actually appears in He shoots arrows and plays
bagpipes in a movie called The Thief of bag Dad
that came out in nineteen twenty four. Was a silent,

(14:18):
silent movie like an action movie, but a pretty big
time like. The guy who was in it was in
Birth of a Nation. He played John Wilkes Booth and
bursh of Perth of Nations. Oh yeah, there's a big
mass production movie, and he appears in it playing the bagpipes.
It's a silent movie, so you don't hear him, but
you see him playing bagpipes in it.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Playing bagpipes, right, because one associates bagpipes with bag dad.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Sure, yeah, with that heef of bagpipes, I think you're
in the wrong movie. So, yeah, he's out of the service.
But in nineteen thirty nine, he gets second place in
a bagpiping competition, pretty major bagpiping competition in England, and
he actually represents the United Kingdom in the World Archery

(15:07):
Championships in Norway. Oh wow, Yeah, I'm getting a little
bit of like kind of patent vibes of the soldier
who was such a good soldier at this thing that
they got to represent the country in soldiering. Yeah, there's
not a lot of need for archery in nineteen thirty
nine in world military tactics. But you know, okay, worse

(15:30):
things have been bad at that.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, And this is nineteen thirty nine, so I mean
some of us have leisure to go to military bagpiping
competitions and or archery competitions, did duh.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
But on the world stage things are brewers, yes, yes,
so yeah, and that's what happens in nineteen thirty nine.
Later that year, Germany invades Poland, and that's kind of
the beginning of World War Two in Europe. Now, Jack
Churchill's thirty three years old at this point, he's not

(16:05):
a he's I mean, which in terms of being in
the army is not you know a lot of people
are signing up at seventeen and eighteen. He's thirty three.
But he's also got experience. He's been trained at Sandhurst,
he's been an officer for ten years plus. So he
goes back and he's.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Looking for a way to contribute and use his skills
and do his thing.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Right right, And so he resumes his commission in the
Manchester Regiment and is taken back as an officer and
gets deployed to France. Like the British Army is looking
for experienced people and he's one of them. So great,
here we go. They ship him off to France to
reinforce the Magineau line, which was the French defense planned

(16:50):
defense against Germany, which you know doesn't work out for
France in nineteen forty.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, and I thought imaginal line was supposed to be impenetrable.
It was supposed to be big chonky bunkers of concrete,
and if you look at the photos, it's like, okay,
no one's arguing with these things. But the Nazis apparently
got around it. Yes, they went through a forest in Belgium.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yes, they drove tanks through a forest in Belgium, which
Belgium was supposed to be neutral and that was supposed
to be off limits. But Belgium. Yeah, you neutrality with
the army and Belgian army did not hold up very well,
and they you know, the we can talk. I could
do an entire episode on the Magino line. But the

(17:35):
French were expecting another World War One, and the Germans
brought tanks and aircraft and rendered that static, concrete, chunky
bunker like completely obsolete. So yeah, yeah, so France loses
World War two. That's a spoiler alert. They lose in

(17:57):
about two weeks. They get they get stamped, they get
crushed pretty bad by the Germans who are pushing through
all of France, and the British Expeditionary Force is is trapped.
I don't I don't know if you've seen Dunkirk the
Christopher Nolan wants it's very good. But that's where mad
Jack finds himself. Early in the war, he gets deployed
into France and the British Expeditionary Force gets flanked by

(18:20):
panthers through Belgium. They got to fall back. They got
to fall back. They're losing. When they stand a fight,
they lose, and when they're when they're moving, they're getting
out maneuvered. They end up getting out to Dunkirk. They're
completely surrounded and Jack Churchill is one of these guys
that they're looking to for for aid. Because he's an officer,
he's one of the only experienced people. A lot of
the guys out here are pretty green. Really, nobody, including Jack,

(18:44):
has seen shooting war like combat. So he's kind of
got to step up and do something here.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, so step up and lead.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Right right, and yeah, here's here's Jack. Jack hits on
his motorcycle and puts a long bow on it and
just starts riding around with his long bow on the
motorcycle and his sword.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
On his Okay, this is sounding kind of mad Max.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, yeah, mad Max. Yeah exactly. That's a great Yeah
he is. He is getting medieval, right.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
He drives evil Asterisk with a motorcycle.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yes, exactly, his trusty Steed, right, Trusty Steed, his night riders,
Trusty Steed. Yeah. He starts riding around on his motorcycle
with a long bow and a pistol and a sword
on his belt, and he carries this this Scottish claybag
broadsword with him at all times on his on his hip.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Okay, so I have to interview clay bag. So is
clay bag the same as a claymore or is there
a difference?

Speaker 1 (19:51):
So it's so the clay bag is a little different.
Is different. So when you think about a claymore sword,
and a lot of times when we talk about Jack Churchill,
you say he was carried a claymore in the World
War Two, you picture the William Wallace sword from Braveheart,
the big two handed thing, right, And that's not what

(20:12):
this is. So the clay bag is the it's a
double edged straight sword into a Scottish sword. It's the
one with the basket hilt that sometimes you'll see it
where it has like right, cloth and stuff in the
basket to make it a little bit more decorative.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
And make it a little more comfortable.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
I give you a little bit of a little more
comfortable and the basket covers you from getting your knuckles
wrapped by an enemy sword or something. So someone's put
into this. Yeah, yeah, it's a defensive thing as well.
Think like a Scottish knight or a Scottish lord. Right,
he's got the long bow on his back, he's probably
got a six shooter. He's got probably a webbly pistol
on his side. He's riding around on a motorcycle and

(20:51):
he's doing whatever he can to try to slow the
Germans down, kind of as a one man force. He
is trying to attack supply rate, supply depots. He's trying
to do some raids, some little harassing attacks, whatever he
can to kind of keep the Germans back. He's getting
a couple guys with them. They'll ride out there, they'll
set fire to some stuff, they'll take a few shots
of guys, they'll ride away. I didn't run kind of

(21:13):
things cause problems on purpose. Yes, he as with all
things historical. There's debate about this, but it seems likely
to me that he killed a couple Nazis with a
bow and arrow, which is the only story I have
ever come across in World War Two of anybody dying
by arrow, huh, Which Okay, is unique and noteworthy. I

(21:37):
feel unique.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, okay, So Jack Churchill is doing his thing and getting.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
Results, yeah he is. I just love that he's going
into twentieth century combat with a weapon from the fifteenth century.
Weapons from the fifteenth century, right, it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean if I was, like, if
I want to go wave around a Claymore or clay Bag,
I just fire up the Nintendo and play Legend of Zelda.
But we're talking about video game Fantasy World, where you know,
if I run out of lives, I can just restart.
And this is a guy waving around artifacts or things

(22:16):
that are replicas of artifacts in a world where technology
has really advanced, and it's kind of scary. I mean, okay,
very scary, let's be honest.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, it's one thing to be playing multiplayer Call of
Duty or something and some guy runs around with a
sword is trying to kill people. But like in real life,
like the Germans have hand grenades and belt fed machine guns.
They've got bolt action rifles, they've got those MP fourty,
they've got submachine guns that are fully automatic, right, and
you got a bow and arrow.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah, and what are you going to do? Block each
bullet with your sword, swat away grenades with your sword
like a golf club. Are you gonna don't shoot hundreds
of German soldiers with the you know, a dozen fifteen
arrows you have. I can't really fathom it. I'm honestly
flummoxed here. But our Jack seems confident in his method.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
He's confident, and so he's the only guy carrying a
sword around, right. The British are kind of famous for
their officers carrying swords, and they carried swords later than
a lot of other militaries did.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
But were they real? Were they I was going to say,
were they real sorts? Obviously the real sorts? But were
they mostly used for ceremonial purposes? Or was the intent
that you would actually use them in common?

Speaker 1 (23:31):
No, No, it's it's yeah, it's what you said, it's
it's ceremonial. It's it's for you know, your dress uniform.
But there was a rhetorical purposes exactly. A senior officer
once asked Jack Churchill about it, like, what are you
doing right? Why are you carrying these weapons in the battle?
I mean, maybe there's an argument that Jack Churchill was
was a world class archer. Maybe it was a better

(23:53):
shot with a bow than he was with a gun. Right,
maybe he could rather use the bow because he was
more comfortable with it. Hey, yeah, but he as far
as the sword goes, he very famously told his commander,
in my opinion, sir, any officer who goes into action
without a sword is improperly dressed. Oh I can't do

(24:16):
the accent, but I feel like it would be if
I could. Yeah, But that's that was his that was
his thing. And you do see this in Japan. The Japanese,
the Imperial Japanese Army in World War two is also
going to war with swords. They're carrying swords that look
like the Samurai swords, like a katana or something, and

(24:38):
they are leading men into battle with this thing. So
we do see it in World War Two, but it's
it's not common in the British Army now.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
But psychologically there might be something about seeing your commanding
officer wield a sword.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
It's got to be inspirational, right, he's pulling out this weapon.
We're we're romanticizing the old days, like we're going to war,
like let's go boys, let's get them. And he's got
a sword. That's cool. It's a cool prop to make
people want to want to follow you and run into
battle after you.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah, and it's a prop that can actually hurt people.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Right. But as we will see consistently, like Jack uses
these weapons to hurt people or to his advantage. These
aren't just you know, accoutrements of for for it's not
a Halloween costume.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
No no, no, no, this is not some plastic thing
you get for five bucks a target.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah, yeah, these are weapons that.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
This is not something you give kindergarteners. Right.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
Bone arrows have legitimately killed people, like a lot of people.
Bonaros have killed millions of people probably like over the
course of human history, tens of millions. Right, swords and
bone arrows.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
So humans and also animals. And I'm sure some of
them have done great damage to straw stuffed targets.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yes, I would not want to be shot with an
arrow or hit with a sword. No, no, But it
does take some guts to charge a machine gun nest
with that.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Well, it's like bringing a i don't know, like a
spork to a something fight.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
Knife to it literally is a big knife to a gunfight. Right,
It's just the knife's a little bigger, But you are
bringing a knife to a gunfight, right, It's just yeah,
that knife is twice the size of a kitchen knife.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is a formidable knife. It is
a formidable double edged knife.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
But it's still nice just bringing it to a gunfight. Hey,
look it works out for Jack, It works out for Jacket. Dunkirk,
he leads these motorcycle bow and arrow attacks on German
forward elements, is trying to hold them off to buy
time for the British Army to evacuate on ships at Dunkirk,

(26:45):
which does happen, and he actually receives the hearns the
Military Cross, which is an award for bravery in the
British Army because that one of these battles, he braves
a hail of enemy gunfire to rescue a wounded fellow
British officer. The guy's heard and Jack runs out across
this field under fire of artillery and machine guns, grabs

(27:07):
this guy, pulls him to safety, saves guy.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
I can picture this in slow motion.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yes, absolutely, yeah, you know, And whenever I picture Jack
and involved with any of this, he's dressed like Robin Hood.
But that's not how that's not how it went down.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
No, no, but symbolically yes, yes, figuratively.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yeah, he saves this guy's life and he gets the
Military Cross for it, and the British Army does manage
to evacuate at Dunkirk, you know, and they go back
to England and they have to regroup. And this is
when we're having the Battle of Britain. The Germans are
sending aircraft over to bomb England. They're thinking about trying
to have an amphibious invasion of England.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, we're all hiding and I mean not Jack Churchill,
but the rest of us are hiding in the London underground. Yeah,
tubes and drinking tea and.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Right, yeah, daily bombs, air sirens over London, fire bombing. Like,
there's crazy stuff happening in England. But like, like you said,
the huge portion of the population of the United Kingdom
is going underground to air raid shelters on a daily
basis to avoid German bombs. But Jack Churchill gets he

(28:19):
gets married, has a kid and joins and joins the commandos. Okay,
trains to be trains to be a commando. You heard
that they're creating this new organization known as the commandos.
It's elite, it's special Forces, it's cool stuff that's for
the best of the best. Yes, And he's like, if
it's for the best people, then I want, I want in,

(28:40):
I'm in, I wanted, I'm along with this commandos thing.
So he honestly had no idea what a commando was,
or what the purpose of it was, or what any
of this was when he signed up for He was
just like, it's elite and I wanted it's going to
be dangerous, so and I'll get to fight German, So
I'm in.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
So he goes through the commando training, which at the
time was the most grueling training in all of the
British Army. You know, there was no real sas training
like we have it now or any of that kind
of stuff, like this is British Commando. This is the
best of the best for the British Army. And he
does it and it's pretty serious training, but he loves it.
He loves every second of it because he's.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
He sounds like he's in his element here.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
He is so okay. So now he's a commando and
the commandos are this small elite group of British Army
troops who are going to carry out special operations. It's
we are entering this phase of the very beginnings of
what we know today, as you know Seal Team six

(29:41):
and the Green Berets and you know, everything we think
about when we're thinking about special operations. The British Royal,
British Commandos is the beginning of a lot of this.
So he gets his first mission. He is an officer,
so he's going to command. He's going to command an
amphibious night raid on.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
He's going to command the commandos.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Commando. The commandos is going commando probably just kidding good.
I don't know. I can't verify that. But he's small.
He's got a little team of guys and they're going
to attack German positions in Norway. So the Germans have Norway.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Okay, just picturing the map and like the little like
pins where Jack Churchill has been.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Okay, everywhere England, England, Norway, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Burmah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Hong Kong.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
So we're headed to Norway.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
So we're going up to Norway. The Germans have taken
Norway and they're using it to resupply positions all along
the sea up there, so he has to attack this
fortress at this area called Maloy Maloi Island. There's four
coastal artillery positions and the comandos are going to land first.

(30:54):
They're going to clear these coastal positions and allow a bigger,
amphibious assault to happen. So these guys are kind of
the spearhead. It's like, you know, top secret stuff. They're
going under night, you know that's they're in these landing craft,
like the D Day landing craft going in at night.
It's dark. There's just the sounds of the ocean. Everybody's
kind of quiet, and a lot of these guys are

(31:16):
on their first commando mission where we don't know if
it's going to work there. They're seeing the artillery up there,
they're seeing the guns up on the bluffs ahead of them.
This is going to be dangerous.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Sneaking around, keeping to the shadows and probably wearing uniforms
or you know, camouflage that blends.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
In, wearing dark uniforms, probably have like probably have some
of that face paint, like black face paint on you
pike yourself blacked out so they don't see you. You're
looking at these guns. You're looking at the searchlights. You're
kind of ready. First first commando mission ever, like here
we go, we gotta we gotta go.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Sneaking and then sneaking, and then sneaking, sneaking.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
And then a bagpipe sneaking. A bagpipe begins to play
on this landing craft as it is approaching the shores.
Just picture the beginning of Saving Private Ryan, where they're
all kind of like geared up and ready to go,
and then it's just like bagpipes. The March of the
Cameron Men is the name of the song, and mad

(32:11):
Jack Churchill is blasting this sucker on the freaking bagpipe
as loud as he can. Yep, Like, here we go, boys, commando, bagpipes, bagpipes.
The landing, the assault ramp opens up, he jumps out

(32:32):
with the bagpipes. He's blasting bagpipes. He throws a grenade
while he's still playing the bagpipes. I don't even know
how that works. Runs out. The water's knee deep. He's
charging Melloy Island. He's got the broadsword. He you know
when I guess when the song's over, he's he's throwing grenades.
He's got the sword. He's screaming the word commando as

(32:52):
out as possible. Come on, yes, And twenty minutes later,
the commanding officer of the operation receives telegraph that just
says Malloy battery and island captured, casualty slight demolitions in progress. Churchill, Wait,
this worked. It worked even though he was.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Like Leroy Jenkinson it all over the place.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
That is a that is the only like that is
the best possible comparison that I can imagine. Yeah, just
Commando Churchill. Okay, Commando church Oh.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Okay, okay. So the opposite of subtlety, the opposite of
subtle work.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
But it worked, and so of course they give him
more missions like this because why not?

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Uh okay, I mean okay, So they think that this
was successful because of his techniques, not despite his techniques.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
He didn't mention his techniques in the telegram that he
sent back saying that he'd captured the entire island in
twenty minutes. So my assumption is that the commanding off
didn't fully didn't ask.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Too many questions, or they're just like, oh, okay, you
seem to know what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Yeah, I didn't fully grasp the situation as as it happened.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Okay, So past results they're taking as indicative of future performance.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Yes, exactly, okay, okay, let's roll with that. He's keep
going until it stops working, right. So they put him
in charge of number two Commando and he's going to
lead an assault later on in the war. He's going
to lea an assault on German positions in Italy in
the port of Salerno. He's going to command number two
Commando and he and his guys go ashore in the

(34:39):
middle of the night, same kind of deal. They're on
these inflatable boats this time instead of on landing craft.
They sneak on to the shore undetected. There's no screaming
or bagpiping. They sneak up and they see a German
tank crew that are hanging around outside of their tank.
There's not that many of these guys in the commando unit,

(34:59):
but there's there's a German tank, and the German tanks
are serious, and these guys are sitting outside of their tank.
They haven't gotten in it. They're hanging out eating dinner,
smoking cigarettes or whatever. And he's able to ambush them
and capture them before they get into their tank, which
is great that it's going to make his life a
lot better because these commandos are special Forces guys are

(35:19):
generally not equipped to deal with armor. They're equipped to
sneak in and attack people who aren't ready to be attacked.
So they take the tank. They take the German position
pretty easily on the beach there, and this is great
because now it's going to clear a beachhead for more
troops to land. The Germans and the Italians they rally
pretty quickly and they launch a counter attack to try

(35:40):
to drive these commandos off the beach before reinforcements can
get there. But this is where you know, maybe the
bagpipes don't come out, but mad Jack Churchill becomes mad.
He just he goes full mad Jack Churchill when the
Germans are counterattacking him with armor and mortars and machine guns.
He's outnumbered. They're attacking him with. This is a big

(36:03):
stit it's real. It's a for real counter attack here.
They're coming after him because they got to get these
commandos out of here. Otherwise heavy equipment is going to
show up to reinforce these guys, and the German's gonna
have a big problem. Jack Churchill is standing in his
inside of his headquarters building and he's getting in some
reports of you know, various counter attacks coming here and here.
He wants to look for himself. He climbs on top

(36:23):
and he's going to.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Say, you say, he's in the building, and I'm like,
this is I mean, okay, yes, obviously he has to
be inside headquarters from time to time, but is this
really in character for no? No, Yeah, he wants to
be in the thick of it. Yeah, he wants to
be where the action is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
So he so he climbs onto the roof of the
headquarters building with a pair of binoculars so that he
can he can look and see where all the bad
guys are.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
And so I mean, if you imagine for a moment,
you're a German soldier attacking this British position. You outnumber them,
they're they're in trench, they're trying to hold you off
the best they can. And then there is a dude,
you know, I imagine he was wearing the beret of
the officer. He's dressed in an officer's uniform, I'm sure,
with all the metals and insignia indicating his rank. He's

(37:14):
got a sword, he's got binoculars, he's holding a radio.
He's just surveying the field.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Shiny things, things that can glint if light is shown
upon them.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
You'd think this guy would be a target, but for
whatever reason, he is just he's got these binoculars in
this radio and he is calling out coordinates to mortars
and to naval artillery to shoot at whatever is attacking him.
He didn't want to hear the reports over the radio.
He's got to see this from himself. He climbs up

(37:43):
under the roof. He's looking at it over here, whatever
ten yards to the right or you know. However, he's
giving me something and he's shouting.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
He's not like using secret signals or whispering. He's this
is Jack Churchill. So he's you know, full volume. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
He is directing mortar fire on the through weapon teams
and blowing things up.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
So he's standing on the roof of a building basically
saying hey, I'm here, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
So to take a little bit of a tangent here.
One of my favorite war movies ever is A Bridge
Too Far about the Battle of Arnhem, which is the
British Army in Holland fighting against the Germans, and Anthony
Hopkins is in that movie and he plays Colonel John Frost.
Frost was the British commander of the first paratroopers, the

(38:32):
Red Devils. They land at the farthest position and they
have to hold it against German tanks that aren't supposed
to be there, and these guys are they're holding out
to the best they can, but they're surrounded and they're
getting they're getting beat up pretty badly. And there's a
scene where Anthony Hopkins has to coordinate. He's at his
headquarters building, but he's got to coordinate with this forward
element of his troops. So he's got to get across town,

(38:53):
which is under fire by artillery and tanks and machine
guns and all of this. So he kind of he
goes out of his headquarters building and across the street
and he takes cover and he runs across and he
runs over here, and he runs over here, and then
he gets to the forward guys and gives him his
orders because the radio is not working or whatever. One
of the technical advisors on the movie was Colonel John Frost,

(39:14):
the guy who Anthony Hopkins is portraying, and Frost is
like cut. And he goes to multiple Academy Award winning
actor Anthony Hopkins and he says, no, not like that.
You are an officer of the British Army. You would
walk slowly and casually towards that position, ignoring the enemy

(39:36):
fire to show disdain for the enemy and inspire your men.
And that's the vibe I get from Jack Churchill. It's
the Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now, like, don't flinch when
the artillery shell lands like twenty feet from you, because
if you don't seem scared, you guys aren't going to
seem scared.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
No, you got to hold the center. Got to be
a rock at a show. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
So they hold it and then the next day they
get more orders which are to sneak into the town
one of these nearby towns is called Pigletty and take
out an artillery battery that's starting, Like the Germans have
brought up artillery to try to counterattack and attack these
landing craft. We got to get this artillery position. So Jack,
you're up. You got to go get these guys.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Mm hmm. So he sneaks sneakily.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Yes, while sneaking, he sneakily sneaks in the middle of
the night, a small group surrounds the town.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
Like he actually sneaks.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, yeah, he sneaks up around the outskirts of the town,
gets his guys in a position, and they have to
wait for the signal before they can launch their attack.
So everybody kind of gets in their positions, and the
signal is when Majack screams the word commando as loudly
as possible. That's your cue to scream and run. That's
your cue to scream and run and start shooting and okay,

(41:01):
and it works. So there's fifty guys in number two
Commando and there are one hundred and thirty six prisoners
taken that day. There's probably twice that number actually defending
the town. But when they start hearing Commando being screamed
from three directions around them and gunfire and everything, they
assume they're they assume they're being attacked by a force

(41:24):
that massively outnumbers them, because what maniacs would charge a
superior position of entrenched enemy screaming and yelling yeah and yeah.
The commandos they don't hardly lose anybody. They get a
couple of guys wounded, and they take one hundred and
thirty six prisoners and Magic Churchill urns the metal.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
Okay, apparently whatever he's doing is working.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yes, yes, he's still not done on this little Italian excursion.
Oh there's more. And I haven't even gotten to the crazy,
craziest part of the whole thing yet. I'm gonna I
think this is a good place to take a second
commercial break, because you're going to want to hear this.
After everything I've said, this is not the craziest. This

(42:10):
is not the thing that got him the Distinguished Service Cross.
So we're going to get into that action, but we're
going to take a break real quick. So Magic Churchill
is commanding the commandos. Now he is a Special Forces officer.

(42:32):
They have landed on Italy. They've attacked bases in Norway,
they've fought at Dunkirk, but now they are in Italy
and they've attacked. They've gotten a foothold on the Italian coastline.
They're trying desperately to hold it and the Germans are
doing everything they can to counterattack and throw the British forces,
the Allied Forces off of this beachhead. And we take

(42:53):
this land So the Germans are bringing up a lot
of artillery to drop onto the landing craft to the
Allied landing craft are bringing more troops and more tanks
and artillery, all this stuff up bullet supplies, bringing all
this stuff up onto the coast, and the Germans are counter.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Really stacking up right right.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
The Germans are trying to put artillery shells on those
stacks of boxes before they can be distributed where they
need to go. Jack has already had a screaming commando
charge that captured one German artillery position, but there's another
one nearby that he needs to take out. And there's

(43:32):
a German mortar regiment that is it's a lot of guys,
it's a lot of people in this town, and they
are setting up some pretty heavy artillery. So Jack Churchill,
we have talked about his sword. He goes equipped with
his sword. He leaves the bow and the bagpipes this.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Time, what okay?

Speaker 1 (43:53):
So just the sword, just the sword.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
So he's down to like one third of his usual accouterments.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Only needs the sword. So he finds a German sentry
patrolling the town and he sneaks up on the guy
and he pulls his sword So this guy is like
picture of some some kid like he's got he's on
guard duty, he's got his rifle, he's walking around at night,
and then this freaking crazy British guy jumps out and

(44:20):
puts the sword up to your neck is what we said, right, Like, yeah,
it seems kind of silly if the guy's runn across
the field at you with a sword and you've got
a machine gun, but that sword's like six inches from
your carott artery. You you what do you sorry? You
put your hands up like okay, surrender.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, assess the situation.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yes. So Jack takes this guy and says, continue doing
your rounds, let's go, and you know, if you make
a move, I'll kill you. So they go around on
the rest of this guy's patrol and there's a little
guard posts along the patrol route, and every time they
get somewhere, he's holding this guy by his by his

(44:57):
shirt and he puts a sword, points a sword at
the next guy and is like, hey, you're coming with me.
You're my prisoner now.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
So he's like every time he comes to a post,
he like accumulates another guy.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, like you're with us, you're my prisoner, drop your weapons,
come with me.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Okay, he does this a third time. He's got three
guys that he's captured with a sword.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yeah. Denny does this thirty eight more times and captures
forty two Germans armed only with a sword, without firing
a shot, without even having a thing that would shoot
a shot, just by force of personality, just by force
of personality.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Force of personality plus sword.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Plus jamming a sword in their face. Yeah. They asked
him about it, like, what what's the deal with is Jack?
How did you take out an entire German heavy mortar
section armed only with a sword? And he's he said,
I maintain And again I'm very I'm very sad I
can't do a good British accent because this would be
so much better if I could. But he says, I

(46:00):
maintain that as long as you tell it German loudly
and clearly what to do, if you are a senior
officer to him, he will cry javel and get on
with it enthusiastically and efficiently, whatever the situation. Yeah, it's
just chars, just charisma check.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah, he just yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Captured forty two guys because he was a senior officer
to them and told them what to do, and.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
They did or a senior officer, or at least gave
a senior officer vibe. I mean, I'm sure he actually was,
because these were probably the ROST guys out on duty.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
So he gets the Distinguished Circus Cross because.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
He's got skills. Yeah, that took some finesse oddly.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Yeah, this guy, he just he just makes it happen, right,
He's Leroy Jenkins dies, but mad Jack it always seems
to work out for him, so he continues to lead
these guys. He ends up later on in the war,
he ends up in Yugosla. They sent him there to
you're talking about your map pins, here's another one. He's

(47:03):
in Eastern Europe. Now, Yeah, he's in Yugoslavia helping Tito's
Partisans fight against Nazi occupation there. And he he's there
with two groups of commandos. But he's also a lot
of his job there is to rally partisan support, so
get local people to rise up against the Germans. So

(47:24):
he's able to get He's got a force of maybe
like fifteen hundred guys, and not that many of them
are commando. A lot of them are these volunteer Yugoslavian
people who are just trying to fight the Nazis.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Yeah, so they haven't had the extensive training.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
Right, right, but they can scream commando as well as anybody.
Yeah commando. Yeah, it's probably even more intimidating with the Yugoslavian.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Accent and honestly, with fifteen hundred people shouting it. Yeah, yeah, no,
if that's actually what happened, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, so that is I think basically what happened commando commando.
So he's in Yugoslavia and he's he's organizing these partisans
and this commando squad and they're going to attack a
an island fortress in the Adriatic at a place called
Brach and uh, they attack, and this time the Germans

(48:19):
are are ready for them. The German forces is very,
very tough, and they the commando attack doesn't go as
well as expected. The Germans they start shooting people down
and every yeah, and they call an artillery and aircraft
and at one point Jack and his guys get strafed

(48:40):
by the RAF like his own guys strafe him by accident,
like yeah, so's that's one of those things about fighting
behind enemy lines. Is that you, you know, you have
to Sometimes your own guys don't get the message that
these are our guys.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
Uh yeah, it gets a little harry right right.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
You've got a bunch of irregulars moving around with guns
and the spitfires flying overhead, and they think, oh, this
is probably bad guys and so. But at this attack,
they're taking at brought Shut, a place called point six
twenty two probably that's just the map designation in the
British Army maps. But every everybody in his unit is

(49:17):
killed or wounded except for him. He is fighting on
this beach. He gets behind a sand dune. Everybody's everybody's
wounded or dying. He's out of ammunition for his pistol.
He's got his sword, but he doesn't have his bow.
The enemy is all over the place, They're heavily armed.

(49:39):
What do you do? So he does, Oh, the end.
It's it's gonna be the end of the war, Project Churchill.
He's surrounded, he's he's he's out of bullets. All of
his his whole team is destroyed. The Germans are closing
in on him, and he does the only reasonable thing
you can do, which is to play a sad song

(50:02):
on the bagpipes, of course. So I mean, Hunger's down
behind a sand dune. He pulls out his bagpipes, and
we were talking about emotional bagpiping music and yeah, and
that is what happens here. So he's playing a sad
song in the bagpipe until.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
That's his coping mechanism.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
They show up.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Wow, and this is not like say, a soundtrack to
a movie. This is an actual person.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Right, And we talked about Dunkirk. At the end of
Dunkirk they get the guy gets captured and they play
sad music and the Germans show up and capture this guy.
But this is real life and he is actually playing
the soundtrack to his own to his own end. And
so Jack is there and he's behind this this sand
dune and he, you know, all of his people are gone,
and he's playing a very sad song in the bagpipes.

(50:50):
And the German soldiers, the Nazi soldiers, approaching him. They
hear this sad bagpipe song, so they do the only
reasonable thing and throw a green hated him and wound
him with the grenade.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
As one does.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Yes, who's playing that damn bagpipe?

Speaker 2 (51:09):
I mean, as music criticism goes it seems a little
bit on the harsh side.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
But what in their defense, I think there probably is
literally a German word for like that damn bagpipe music.
It's probably some twenty seven letter German word. Yeah. So
they fragg him with a grenade and they held him
off to sucks in thousand concentration Camp ooh, which is

(51:35):
one of the death camps.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Yeah, okay, this sounds not ideal, it's not.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
Great, but he's not dead. He's just wounded. He's has
been blown up with a grenade, which this is not
the sort of thing that slows down a guy like
mad Jack that much.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
I was gonna say, yeah, this is matt Jack Churchill.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Yeah, so he's put in the area. I mean it's
this is a German extermination camp, but it is. He's
a British officer and importantly his last name is Churchill,
and they think, as you said in the beginning, he
might be related. So they're not sure if he's related
or not. He's not.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yeah, they want to tread.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Of course, he would say that they don't know this,
They don't know that for sure. It was his ID card, says,
you know, catching Churchill.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, So they tread a little bit
more carefully than they mightn't do.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
They interrogate him pretty heavily. But he put him in
a special part of the camp with the other British officers,
right because you just treat officers differently or whatever.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Apparently, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
So they put him in the special area with the
British officers and the guys that they put him in with.
Pat did you ever see the movie The Great Escape
with Steve McQueen.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah, The Great Escape?

Speaker 1 (52:47):
Yeah, okay, so yeah, so it's it's based off of
a real story where these RAF pilots had been shot
down over Germany. They were flying bomber missions over Germany,
or fighter missions over Germany. They got shot down, they
got put into a prison camp, and they escaped and
some of them got away. Most of them were recaptured
and a portion of those guys were executed, but some

(53:10):
of these guys lived. And uh, those are the guys
that mad Jack Churchill finds himself imprisoned with at this
concentration camp. So he goes into the officers area of
this camp, and the officers are the British officers who
survived the Great Escape, and guess what these guys.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Have been working on ooh, I'm guessing it's not like
some Macroma project.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
No, they're working on a badass tunnel. Tunnel tunnel out
of here. They didn't learn their lesson last time. They're
not going to stick around to find out find out
what happens. They are digging another hole and they're gonna
get the hell out of here. Yes, and so Jack
is like, just yeah, you show me where to start,

(53:55):
right yep. So with shrapnel linim from the grenade wounded,
he is tunneling through rock and earth and soil with
whatever tools or fingernails he can he can manage. And
these guys dig a huge cavern out of the concentration

(54:18):
camp and they escape.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Wow wow.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Yeah, he gets out into the countryside, into the German countryside,
and he evades capture for fourteen days. So for two
weeks he's on the run. They do recapture him eventually,
Oh yeah, he's he's tracked down by the Gestapo and
they catch him. But he's on the run for fourteen
days before they finally get him. Yeah yeah, so all right,

(54:43):
they get him. He's been captured again, and this time
they send him to.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Docou Ooh, that doesn't sound good.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
No, Docau is another extermination camp, one of the big ones. Yeah.
But and there's a couple of versions of this story.
I ran across a different version. But the version of
this story I prefer is that when he finds out
where he's going, he jumps out the back of the
moving prison truck, still tied up, and sprints into the

(55:13):
woods and then spends the next seven days traveling through
the forests like handcuff, basically trying to survive off the
land and find the Allies. There's another version of the
story that he got he did, get moved to Dacau
and then or it got moved to a different camp,
like an intermediary camp, and then like the SS left
and he and some other prisoners escape there. Whatever it is,

(55:36):
like how whatever the version of the story is. Yeah,
he escapes, he gets recaptured, he escapes again, and then
he finds the Allied line. Yeah, he walks to Italy
and finds the Allies. So that's Jack.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
Yeah, that's Jack.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Yeah. He walks to Italy, he meets up with an
American armored unit. He catches a ride back to Britain
and they ship him back to Burma to go fight
the Japanese.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
Okay, so he's back in the saddle.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Yeah, he arrests, recuperates for however much time that he
needs to do that. By the time he's ready to
get back into action, things are looking like they're wrapping
up in Germany, so they send him to Burma to
try to fight the Japanese forces out there. Now, that
doesn't it doesn't work out. So he catches a train,
but he gets out there, but by the time he

(56:28):
reaches his position, the Japanese army has surrendered and the
war's over.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Okay, Yeah, so what does he do.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
There's a at one point he's quoted as joking that
if it wasn't for those damn Yanks, we could have
had this war for another ten years.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Okay, So that's the vibe we're getting that the.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
Jack Churchill lifestyle. Yeah. Yeah, so the war's over. He's forty.
He decides what are you gonna do? He decides he
wants to qualify as a paratrooper. He takes up skydive.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
At age forty, Okay, which is and I'm just going
to say to all of our listeners, Hey, you know
you're never too old to try something new.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
Yeah, why not, right, let's be a bit learned to skydive.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Be a paratrooper, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
So he qualifies as a paratrooper. He gets deployed to
British Palestine. So he gets sent to Jerusalem. He is
in a neighborhood of Jerusalem called Mount Scopus. And this
is the late nineteen forties, so it is the time
period where the British are transitioning Palestine into Israel. And yeah, yeah,

(57:40):
you know, I don't want to get too much into it,
but what happens with Jack is there as a military
advisor to kind of oversee the transition thing. And there's
some unrest and at one point Jack is positioned along
this road and there is a a convoy of Jewish

(58:03):
medical supplies that are going to a hospital and they
get ambushed by a big group of people who are
attacking them with everything. According to Jack, everything from like
flintlock muskets to like belt fed brand guns and stuff.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
So he's got to get this medical convoy through.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Right, So this it's a civilian convoy of medical aid
going to a hospital. They get attacked by explosives and
rifle fire, and Jack is there he's in his forties,
he's in his full military dress uniform, and he has
explicit orders not to interfere with anything that's going on.
Oh so the British Army's not supposed to get involved

(58:46):
with this, like don't don't get in the middle of
any of this. This is a sticky situation. We don't
want to like just you know, try to keep the
peace to the best of your ability. But don't, you know,
don't engage. But Jack Churchill doesn't have don't engage in
his vocabulary. So he so what does he do?

Speaker 2 (59:06):
He engages.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
He engages. He runs out there in his full uniform,
his dress uniform with his service pistol. He starts opening
fire on the attackers. He's trying to get those cars
out of the ambush site. He's eventually a group of
other British officers come join him. Is maybe only a

(59:27):
dozen of these guys, the convoys not armed, and there
are somewhere in the range of one hundred and fifty
people attacking it. So and they're and they're ready for
it right there, and they're in the buildings, they're on
the rooftops. They're attacking from an area that was the
American held like hospital area, so place place you're not
even supposed to shoot at and so. But but Jack

(59:50):
is doing everything you can to get these people out
of there. He's he's laying down covering fire. He at
one point Carjack's an armored personnel carrier to try to
drag people out of there. He calls it an artillery strike.
And he helps get a lot of these people out
of there. And after he's done that, of course, being Jack,
he's still not done. He says, oh, that convoy was
headed to this hospital. I got to get there. Oh.

(01:00:13):
So he runs to the hospital that they're headed to
to warn them what's going on. And when he gets there,
it's already under attack by rockets. Like there's artillery coming
down on this hospital.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Oh no.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
And so Jack helps evacuate seven hundred medical personnel and
patients from the hospital and get them out of there
and get to safety under attack from rockets and stuff.
So just crazy heroism, right, trying to save these civilians
from this war zone.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, so he disobeyed the order.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Do not engage, right, That's I mean, why just said
Jack if he didn't want him to engage? Yeah? Yeah,
so yeah, so mad Jack Churchill fighting Jack Churchill. He
does a stewer in Palestine, he goes back to England.
He gets deployed now to Australia. Later he okay, another

(01:01:09):
pin on the map, right, So he's an instructor at
a land air warfare school in Australia, so the paratrooper training,
the amphibious assault training for all of the Australian forces.
And while he's there, this is when he becomes a
hardcore surfer. Oh yeah, yeah, exactly, and he actually ends

(01:01:29):
up when he comes back to England. He likes surfing
so much and there's not that much surfing in England.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
He becomes kind of I don't associate England with.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Surfing, right, So he starts doing like some freshwater surfing,
which I didn't know was a thing. Oh, Pat, you
were looking at it ahead of time, and you were
looking at it a minute ago.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Freshwater surfing is a thing. And
you can catch the wave or catch the boar on
a thing called a title boar, which is I will
confess a little bit new to me. But when the
tide comes in, it's got this you know, surge on
the surface, and apparently you can catch that. And the

(01:02:07):
River Severn in England has a pretty substantial tidal boar,
so when the tide comes in, you can catch the
tidal boar, which is basically like catching the wave. And
he figured out how to do that and make the
most of it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
He's one of the first people to do it. And
I don't imagine that it's awesome, Like, I think, you
only get one shot, right, There aren't recurring waves here.
You get one and you better catch here, right yeah. Yeah.
So he becomes and he decides he loves surfing, and
he goes back to England and is doing his thing there.

(01:02:41):
They joke that he or they say that he used
to kind of freak everybody out on the train because
he'd go to work and then when he would come
back from work, he would throw his briefcase and all
of his stuff out the open window of the train.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
The train we all want to do that, then we
all want to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Past his house, So we throw all this stuff out
the window into his backyard. Oh, and then ride the
rest of the train, ride to the stop, and then
get out and walk the rest of the way without
having to carry his stuff. But like whoever was sitting
next to him, or whoever was kind of you know,
patrolling the train, like the conductor or whatever, would just
they would be kind of horrified that he'd just be like, well,
here we go put junk. It was probably cathartic as well. Okay, yeah, yeah,

(01:03:25):
he goes back to doing some of the acting stuff.
So in nineteen fifty two he appears in the movie Ivanhoe,
which is a great movie. Yeah. Yeah, he's one of
the archers. He's an archer and he shoots from the
walls of Warwick Castle in one of the scenes in
that movie, apparently, and.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
He knows what he's doing.

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
Yeah, he's a guy that could do this right. He's
a guy from another time, and in the movie Ivanhoe,
he gets to portray himself in that time. One of
my my you know, there's a lot of there's a
lot of jokes from the first Badass book that don't
really translate. Humor is a difficult thing that doesn't always
train is laid over like time periods, so's there's some

(01:04:03):
stuff in there that doesn't really translate. Well. But my
favorite joke in that book then when I wrote it,
and still to this day, is that I was able
to connect Madjack Churchill through six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Oh,
so I found a different path this time. So Elizabeth
Taylor was in Ivanhoe. She was on North and South,
that TV show from the eighties about the Civil War.

(01:04:25):
She was on that with Christy Ailey, who was in
She's having a baby with Kevin Bacon. So there you go,
ding ding ding. Six degrees of Majack Churchill. He's got
a pretty decent number. He's got a bigon number of two.
That's pretty good. So Jack retires from the army in
nineteen fifty nine. He lives the rest of his life
in England. He bounces around all over the place, but

(01:04:46):
he his home is in Surrey, England, and he lives
until nineteen ninety six. He dies at age eighty nine.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
Oh eighty nine.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
I was already having fought on him all these battles
and wars and been wounded by shrapnel, and having just
lived to this extremely hazardous life.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
Yeah, but survived in the forest for seven days with
his hands bound together.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
Right after having survived for fourteen days a different escape attempt,
and having survived two different German concentration camps and fought
in wars and traveled to I think we've hit every continent.
He's got to get to the America.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
South America, what about South America, North America, Antarctica.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Yeah, he's been to Africa. He was in Kenya, but yeah,
America's missed the Americas. But he probably went to the
US at some point, I'd imagine, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Sure, yes, yeah, just for fun. Yeah, yeah, and he
survived and he surfed.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Yeah, and he surfed.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
I mean, we've got the whole gamut. Any skydife and
played the bagpipes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
Played the bagpipes, and the bagpipes just kept coming back
as like badass things. He kept doing badass stuff with bagpipes,
which should all be so lucky. It's not enough to
me to learn to play the bagpipes. That looks extremely
complicated and difficult.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
Yeah, but one can have respect for those who do
play the bagpipes.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
That's fair. I also don't think I would assault a
German coastal artillery battery, but I can have respect for
people who did that as well.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
With a long sword, right and force of personality.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
Yes, all right, guys, that's mad Jack Churchill. We hope
you like to this. If you're liking the show, please
do like and subscribe to it. It really does help
us out a lot and it will allow us to
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to have you listen to us. So thank you so
much for sticking around, and we will see you next

(01:06:42):
week with an all new badass Stay Badass.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
Badass of the Week is an iHeartRadio podcast produced by
High five Content. Executive producers are Andrew Jacobs, Me, Pat Larish,
and my co host Ben Thompson. Writing is by me
and Ben. Story editing is by Ian Jacobs Brandon Phibbs.
Mixing and music and sound design is by Jude Brewer.

(01:07:09):
Special thanks to Noel Brown at iHeart. Badass of the
Week is based on the website Badass oftheweek dot com,
where you can read all sorts of stories about other badasses.
If you want to reach out with questions ideas, you
can email us at Badass Podcast at badassoftheweek dot com.

(01:07:29):
If you like the podcast, subscribe, follow, listen, and tell
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