Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart.
Not sure how well I’m pronouncing that, but I’ll be calling him Adrian throughout
the remainder of this video.
With his eye patch and empty sleeve, just his image alone is enough to ask questions.
This guy served as a British officer in the Boer War, the First World War, and the Second
World War, survived two plane crashes, was shot in the head, face, stomach, ankle, leg,
hip, and ear, tunneled out of a prisoner-of-war camp, broke his back, and bit off his own
fingers when a doctor refused to amputate.
Born in Brussels in 1880, Adrian spent his early years in both Belgium and England.
At the age of six, he moved to Cairo, Egypt so his father could practice law there.
Adrian was Catholic and learned to speak Arabic.
In 1891, he attended an English boarding school and then went on to college, but left to join
the British Army during the Boer War in South Africa in 1899.
Early in the war, Adrian was wounded in the stomach and sent home.
His father was furious about him leaving college, but allowed him to stay in the military.
Adrian was given a commission in the Second Imperial Light Horse and soon saw further
action in South Africa.
He was made a second lieutenant of the 4th Dragoon Guards in 1901.
In 1902, he was transferred to British India.
In 1904, after returning to South Africa, Adrian was made an aide-de-camp to the commander-in-chief
there.
Having remained a Belgian subject during this entire time, Adrian finally became a naturalized
British subject in 1907.
When World War I began, Adrian first served in British Somaliland.
In an attack upon an enemy fort, he was shot twice in the face, losing an eye and also
a portion of his ear.
In 1915, he took part in fighting on the Western Front in France, commanding three infantry
battalions and a brigade.
He was wounded seven more times during the war and lost his left hand in 1915.
He even bit off his own fingers when a doctor declined to remove them.
He had been shot through the skull, ankle, hip, leg, and ear.
He received several promotions in rank throughout the war, eventually attaining the rank of
major.
He also received several awards and medals for his service, including the Victoria Cross,
the highest honor for combat in the British Empire.
Even after having been wounded so severely, Adrian later said of his experiences, “Frankly,
I had enjoyed the war.”
After the war, Adrian went on to serve in Poland for a few years, surviving an airplane
crash and a brief period of captivity.
He retired from the army in 1923 with the honorary rank of major general.
Adrian began to lead a peaceful life on a large estate in eastern Europe near the Soviet
border.
His retirement was later interrupted in 1939 when he was recalled to duty and appointed
as the head of the British Military Mission to Poland.
Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany in September and the Soviets soon joined in the attack
from the east.
Adrian’s estate was taken during the fighting.
Adrian went on to serve in Norway and Northern Ireland throughout 1940 when he turned 60
years old.
With the Nazis preparing to invade Yugoslavia, the Yugoslavs asked for British aid.
Adrian was sent to Serbia to negotiate with the Yugoslavian government, traveling in a
Wellington bomber across the Mediterranean.
After refueling in Malta, the plane’s engines failed and the aircraft crashed into the sea
about a mile from Italian-controlled Libya.
Adrian was forced to swim ashore where he was captured by the Italians.
Adrian was made a prisoner alongside several other officers who Rommel had captured in
North Africa in 1941.
Adrian attempted to escape several times, even tunneling for seven months.
He once escaped and evaded recapture for eight days, disguising himself as an Italian civilian.
In August 1943, Adrian was released from his imprisonment as the Italian government secretly
planned to leave the war and sent him back to the British with the message.
Less than a month after returning to England, Adrian was summoned by Prime Minister Winston
Churchill.
He was given the rank of acting lieutenant-general and sent to India to later go on to China
as Churchill’s personal representative.
Before leaving for China, Adrian attended the 1943 Cairo Conference organized by Churchill,
U.S. President Roosevelt, and Chinese General Chaing Kai Shek.
A photograph of these leaders gathered in Cario shows Adrian standing behind them on
the far right.
Adrian spent his next years working with Chiang Kai Shek in China and often traveling to British
India.
During his time in China, Adrian fiercely denounced communism and called Mao Zedong
a fanatic.
When he met Mao at a dinner, he interrupted his speech to criticize him for holding back
in the fight against Japan for domestic political reasons.
Mao was stunned for a moment and then laughed.
When the Japanese surrounded in August 1945, Adrian flew to Singapore to take part in the
formal surrender.
Near the end of his career, Adrian met American General Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo.
He retired at the age of 67 in October 1947 with the honorary rank of lieutenant-general.
On his way home to England, Adrian stopped in French Indochina as a guest of a military
commander.
He slipped coming down some stairs and fell, breaking his back and several vertebrae.
He eventually recovered in an English hospital.
After Adrian’s first wife died in 1949, he remarried in 1951 at the age of 71 to a
woman 23 years younger than him.
He settled in County Cork, Ireland where he took up fishing and hunting during his later
years.
Adrian died at the age of 83 in 1963.
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