Adrian Carton de Wiart suddenly had to assume command of three beheaded units,
as all their commanders had become casualties.
In the middle of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the Lieutenant Colonel, with his only eye and one
hand, would run from position to position guiding his men across no man’s land to secure victory.
Carton de Wiart was seen pulling the pins out of grenades with his teeth and then
throwing the charge at the enemy. While the courageous leader would be awarded the Victoria
Cross for his actions that day, he was not even British - he had lied about his true identity!
A Belgian aristocrat, Carton de Wiart was desperate for action and jumped into any
conflict he could, regardless of his personal stake in them.
Moreover, he would be wounded a dozen times,
including taking a bullet to the back of his head, and emerge unscathed.
Carton’s reputation eventually earned him the nickname of the “Unkillable Soldier.”
And when he was asked about it, he would only say: (QUOTE) "Frankly, I enjoyed the war."
A Gentleman Pirate
Adrian Carton de Wiart first served in Somaliland with the Camel Corps at the
outbreak of World War 1. The British were waging a low-level war against the guerilla fighters of
the Dervish leader Mohammed bin Abdullah, or as the British knew him, "Mad Mullah."
During a raid on one of the Mullah's fortresses,
the young Lieutenant charged fearlessly against the enemy.
As a result, Carton received three gunshots in the face, which cost him an eye and part of his ear.
Not only did he survive, but he took pride in his battle wounds.
Winston Churchill's military advisor Hastings Ismay once argued: (QUOTE)
"I honestly believe that he regarded the loss of an eye as a blessing."
Due to his severe wounds, Carton was taken to England to heal.
Moreover, he was granted permission to join the Western Front,
provided he wore a glass eye to be declared medically fit for service.
However, he felt the fake eye was unbearably
uncomfortable and threw it out the window on his way to the airport.
From then on, he wore an eye patch, which became an iconic element of his attire.
As the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography stated: (QUOTE) "With his black eyepatch and
empty sleeve, Carton de Wiart looked like an elegant pirate, and became a figure of legend."
Trooper Carton
Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart was born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1880,
to an aristocratic family. Although his father was Belgian and his mother Irish,
the young man would have strong ties with England as he grew up.
When his parents divorced in 1886, his father, a lawyer and magistrate,
took the family to Cairo in Egypt. Five years later, his father remarried an
Englishwoman who had the young boy sent to a boarding school in her home country.
As a youngster, Carton de Wiart had no choice but to follow his father's wishes. He enrolled in
Balliol College at Oxford University and resigned himself to becoming a lawyer and businessman.
However, the Second Boer War broke out in South Africa in 1899, and, itching for something more,
the teenager opted out of college. He was 19 and a foreigner, but eager for combat,
he pondered: (QUOTE) "If the British didn't fancy me, I would offer myself to the Boers."
Carton de Wiart pretended to be 25 years old, lied about his nationality, and without his
father's consent or even his awareness, joined the British Army under the pseudonym "Trooper Carton."
The young man had no personal stake in the conflict between Imperial Britain and the
local forces of South Africa, but as soon as he heard about the war, he had a clear thought:
(QUOTE) "At that moment, I knew once and for all that war was in my blood."
Very Good Shots
Carton left for Africa with the elite 19th Battalion Imperial Yeomanry in 1899.
Not long after, he received the first of a dozen combat wounds while attempting to cross a river.
A Boer commando ambush got him, and he got shot twice, in the stomach and groin.
When his superiors found him, they asked if there were many Boers in the area.
Carton half-jokingly answered: (QUOTE) "No, but the few were very good shots."
Irremediably, he was forced to return to England to recover,
where his father had recently learned of his little mischief and was furious.
After another brief stay at Oxford, Carton was commissioned in the Second Imperial Light Horse.
This time around he flew first-class to South Africa and gave away considerable tips to the
flight attendants. Upon landing, the young soldier was nearly broke, but he didn’t care.
The trooper did not take long to be promoted to Corporal, but he was soon demoted after
threatening to punch a Sergeant. And although he eventually became a Second Lieutenant, Carton
saw virtually no combat for the remainder of his service in South Africa, much to his frustration.
The young rebel was known to be a gambler and playboy,
indulging in drinking, hunting, and socializing. He did not tolerate the
boredom of peacetime and jumped at the next opportunity to fight.
Carton wished to support the British Imperial Forces in Somaliland but was instead sent
to Muttra in India. With no battle to wield, the young soldier created trouble of his own.
He passed the time shooting and hunting boars,
but he once fell from his horse and the animal fell on top of him, cracking his ribs and ankle.
While recuperating, a local laborer annoyed him, and Carton shot him in the rear.
Carton was immediately put in jail and would not see actual combat for over a decade.
Finally, in 1907, he officially took an oath of allegiance to Britain after
serving in the Army for eight years, and was naturalized as a British subject.
Chateau General
After the outbreak of World War 1 and the loss of one eye,
Carton embarked on a steamer for France, thrilled to participate in the fighting
on the Western Front with the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, a cavalry regiment.
There, he would successively command three infantry battalions and a brigade.
During the Second Battle of Ypres in early 1915,
Carton was trying to relieve an infantry unit when the Germans launched an artillery barrage
and shell fragments and exploded parts of his wristwatch shattered his left hand.
When a doctor refused to remove his remaining fingers,
Carton pulled them off at the stump and resumed fighting. However,
a surgeon had to amputate what was left of his palm later that year.
Still, not only did Carton manage to get medically cleared with only one
eye and one hand, but he kept advancing through the ranks.
In March of 1916, he became a temporary Major and subsequently a temporary Lieutenant Colonel.
During the Battle of the Somme, Carton would tear the pins out of grenades with his teeth
and then hurl them at the enemy with his one good hand. Three battalion Commanders had
become casualties in the fierce battle, but Carton took command of their units
and did everything in his power to ensure they kept the land they had already won.
Exposing himself frequently, he alone organized the positions and supplies,
running through fire barrages and inspiring his men in the process.
He was then bestowed with the Victoria Cross for his actions leading the 8th
Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment in early July.
His citation read: (QUOTE) "For most conspicuous bravery, coolness and
determination during severe operations of a prolonged nature. It was owing in a great
measure to his dauntless courage and inspiring example that a serious reverse was averted."
Miracle
During the four-month battle,
the so-called unkillable soldier continued to charge forward with no apparent fear.
Understandably, he was severely wounded many times.
When fighting across the treacherous terrain dubbed the Devil's Wood, a sniper shot him in
the back of the head. However, the bullet pierced his skull, doing minor damage.
According to his memoirs, the doctor verified that his skull was intact,
ordered a bottle of champagne for him, and celebrated the unexplainable miracle.
The only side effect he had was a tickle every time he got a haircut.
Carton
eventually injured his ankle too. And in the Battle of Passchendaele, he was shot through the
hip, through the leg at Cambrai, and also through the ear at Arras. But no bullet could stop him.
When World War 1 ended, he jumped into the next conflict and stayed
in Poland as second-in-command of the British-Polish Military Mission,
in which the British military was aiding the Poles against the Soviets.
While traveling through the war-stricken country, the Red Russian cavalry overran Carton's train.
He quickly drew his revolver and retaliated. Yet again, he alone pushed back the invaders,
but fell from the moving train and somehow managed to get back on it to keep fighting the Cossacks.
During his time in Poland, he also survived an aircraft crash.
Roughly two decades later, he couldn't resist participating in World War 2.
At age 61, Carton re-enlisted in the British Army and assisted in several
operations to drive the Nazis out of the occupied countries of Northern Europe.
All of the operations failed, but he survived - though barely.
Life As a Prisoner
In 1947, Carton received a direct assignment from Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
He was to travel to Yugoslavia on a secret mission to assist Josip Broz Tito.
However, his bomber never got there and plummeted into the Mediterranean.
Middle-aged, nearly blind, and with only one hand,
Carton made it to the shore by himself while taking a wounded comrade to safety.
Still, the Italians captured the downed soldiers upon reaching the shoreline
and took them as prisoners at the Castello di Vincigliata.
The sexagenary attempted to escape five times, finally succeeding once.
Carton, along with four other prisoners in their fifties, managed to dig a tunnel under
the castle and initially avoided capture while disguised as Italian peasants.
He did this while wearing an eyepatch and an empty sleeve, not to mention the
innumerable scars that identified him as the one and only unkillable soldier.
Evidently, none of the prisoners spoke Italian, and they were recaptured after a week.
Shortly after, and in a surprising turn of events,
Carton was released to send a message to the British Army about a peace treaty.
After two years as a prisoner of war, he was finally free in the fall of 1943.
Happy Odyssey
Carton’s adventures in the war were over, but he would continue dwelling in politics.
In 1945, he was assigned to report on the Chinese Communists, which he notoriously despised. He
openly called Mao Zedong a fanatic, and during a memorable dinner with the Chinese ruler,
Carton bluntly interrupted the mandatary's propaganda speech to criticize him for not
doing more to stop the Japanese. Mao was stunned for a brief moment but then laughed in good humor.
Ironically, his last injury was a rather dull
one compared to his extensive collection of battle wounds.
During a short stop in Rangoon in French Indochina, the honorary Lieutenant General slipped
on coconut matting and broke his spine. He was 66 years old, but lived nearly two more decades,
outlived two wives, and enjoyed a peaceful retirement in Ireland, where he wrote his memoirs.
The autobiography was titled ‘Happy Odyssey,’ and Churchill prefaced it.
Surprisingly, however, his Victoria Cross was not mentioned once. As he confided to a friend:
(QUOTE) "It had been won by the 8th Glosters, for every man has done as much as I have".
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