text:
Chindits

The Chindits, officially known as Long Range Penetration Groups, were special operations units of the British and Indian armies which saw action in 1943–1944 during the Burma Campaign of World War II. Brigadier Orde Wingate formed them for long-range penetration operations against the Imperial Japanese Army, especially attacking lines of communication deep behind Japanese lines.

Their operations featured long marches through extremely difficult terrain, undertaken by underfed troops often weakened by diseases such as malaria and dysentery. Controversy persists over the extremely high casualty-rate and the debatable military value of the achievements of the Chindits.

Background and formation
During the East African Campaign of 1940–41, Wingate – under General Archibald Wavell, Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East Command – had begun to explore guerilla tactics, when he created and commanded a unit known as Gideon Force, composed of regular troops from Sudan and Ethiopia, as well as Ethiopean partisans. Gideon Force disrupted Italian supply lines and collected intelligence.

In 1942, after the disbandment of Gideon Force, Wavell – who had since been appointed Commander-in-Chief, India in New Delhi – requested the services of Wingate in Burma. It was intended that he would raise irregular forces to operate behind the Japanese lines, in a manner similar to Gideon Force. Wingate arrived in Burma in March 1942 and for two months, as Japanese forces advanced rapidly, toured the country developing his theories of long-range penetration, during the two months preceding the Japanese conquest of Burma. After returning to Delhi, he presented his proposals to Wavell.

The name Chindits is a corrupted form of Chinthe (ခြင်္သေ့), Burmese word for "lion".

Organisation and training
The first Chindit unit, the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade, was gradually formed in the area around Jhansi in the summer of 1942. Wingate took charge of the training of the troops in the jungles of central India during the rainy season. Half of the Chindits were British: the 13th Battalion, the King's Liverpool Regiment (nominally a second-line battalion, which contained a large number of older men) and men from the former Bush Warfare School in Burma, who were formed into 142 Commando Company. The other portion of the force consisted of the 3rd Battalion, the 2nd Gurkha Rifles (a battalion that had only just been raised) and the 2nd Battalion, the Burma Rifles (a composite unit formed from several depleted battalions of Burmese troops that had retreated into India in 1942).

Wingate trained this force as long-range penetration units that were to be supplied by stores parachuted or dropped from transport aircraft and were to use close air support as a substitute for heavy artillery. They would penetrate the jungle on foot, essentially relying on surprise through mobility to target enemy lines of communication (a tactic that the Japanese had previously used in 1942 to great effect against British forces in Malaya and Burma).

The standard brigade and battalion structures were abandoned. The force was instead formed into eight columns, each of which was organised as: an infantry rifle company (with nine Bren light machine guns and three 2-inch mortars); a support group with the heavy weapons (four Boys anti-tank rifles, two medium Vickers machine guns and two light anti-aircraft guns); a reconnaissance platoon from the Burma Rifles; and a sabotage group from 142 Commando Company. Small detachments from the Royal Air Force (equipped with radios to call in air support), Royal Corps of Signals and Royal Army Medical Corps were attached to the column headquarters. The heavy weapons, radios, reserve ammunition, and rations and other stores were carried on mules, which would also provide an emergency source of food once their loads had been depleted. With 57 mule handlers, each British column numbered 306 men (the Gurkha columns were slightly stronger, with 369 men).

Each man carried more than 72 lb of equipment, which was proportionally more than the mules carrying the support weapons and other stores. This included a personal weapon, such as the SMLE rifle or Sten Gun, ammunition, grenades, a machete or Gurkha kukri knife, seven days' rations, groundsheet, change of uniform and other assorted items. Much of this load was carried in an Everest carrier, which was essentially a metal rucksack frame without a pack.

Shortly before the first operation, one column was broken up to bring the remaining seven up to full strength. Two or more columns were commanded by a group headquarters, which in turn was commanded by the brigade headquarters.

Operation Longcloth
The original intent had been to use the Chindits as a part of a larger offensive. When this offensive was cancelled, Wingate convinced General Wavell to send the Chindits into Burma anyway. Accordingly, on 8 February 1943, Operation Longcloth commenced and 3,000 Chindits, Wingate with them, began their march into Burma.

The Chindits crossed the Chindwin River on 13 February and faced the first Japanese troops two days later. Two columns marched to the south and received their air supply drops in broad daylight to create an impression that they were the main attack. They even had a man impersonating a British general along with them. The RAF mounted air attacks on Japanese targets to support the deception. These columns were to swing east at the beginning of March and attack the main north-south railway in areas south of the main force. One column successfully carried out demolitions along the railway, but the other column was ambushed. Half of the ambushed column returned to India.

Five other columns proceeded eastward. Two, those of Michael Calvert and Bernard Fergusson, proceeded towards the main north-south railway in Burma. On 4 March, Calvert's column reached the valley and demolished the railway in 70 places. Fergusson arrived two days later to do the same. Despite these successes, however, the railway was only temporarily disabled, and resumed operation shortly afterwards.

On many occasions, the Chindits could not take their wounded with them; some were left behind in villages. Wingate had, in fact, issued specific orders to leave behind all wounded, but these orders were not strictly followed. Since there were often no established paths in the jungle along their routes, many times they had to clear their own with machetes and kukris (and on one occasion, a commandeered elephant). Supply was delivered by air using three Hudsons and three Dakotas of 31 Squadron operating from Agartala in eastern Bengal.

Once in Burma, Wingate repeatedly changed his plans, sometimes without informing all the column commanders. The majority of two of the columns marched back to India after being ambushed by the Japanese in separate actions. After the railway attacks, Wingate decided to cross his force over the Irrawaddy River. However, the area on the other side of the river turned out to be inhospitable to operations. Water was difficult to obtain and the combination of rivers with a good system of roads in the area allowed the Japanese to force the Chindits into a progressively smaller "box".

In late March, Wingate made the decision to withdraw the majority of the force, but sent orders to one of the columns to continue eastward. The operations had reached the range limit of air supply and prospects for new successful operations were low, given the Japanese pressure. The columns were generally left to make their own way back to India. On the journey back, the most difficult actions involved crossing back over the Irrawaddy River. The Japanese had observers and patrols all along the river bank and could quickly concentrate once an attempt at a crossing was detected. Gradually, all the columns broke up into small groups. Wingate's headquarters returned to India on its own ahead of most of the columns. Through the spring and even into the autumn of 1943, individual groups of men from the Chindits made their way back to India. The army did what they could for the men. In one case, an aeroplane was landed in an open area and wounded men were evacuated by air. Part of one column made it to China. Another body of men escaped into the far north of Burma. Others were captured or died.

By the end of April, after a three-month mission, the majority of the surviving Chindits had crossed the Chindwin river, having marched between 750–1,000 miles. Of the 3,000 men that had begun the operation, a third (818 men) had been killed, taken prisoner or died of disease, and of the 2,182 men who returned, about 600 were too debilitated from their wounds or disease to return to active service. Of the remaining men, Wingate practically hand picked those few he would retain, while the rest were put back under the normal army command structure as part of their original battalions.

Interlude
Although British Army officers in India criticised the effectiveness of the Chindits (Japanese railway communications had been out of commission for less than a week), their effect on the morale of the Allied troops in India was refreshing, and they were given plenty of publicity.

Wingate wrote an operations report on returning to India, which was controversial for many reasons, including attacks on officers under his command. The report had a tendency to excuse any mistakes made by its author (Wingate), while making vicious attacks on other officers, often based on limited information. Eventually, through his political allies in London, a copy of the report was given to Winston Churchill, who was impressed and took Wingate with him to the Quebec Conference. His concepts for long-range penetration operations behind Japanese lines received official backing at high level, and he obtained substantial US support for his force. The US Army also began its own plans for the group that later became Merrill's Marauders.

As the members of the first expedition were making their way back to India, a second long range penetration unit, 111th Indian Infantry Brigade was being formed. Popularly known as The Leopards, the brigade was raised by General Wavell without the knowledge of Wingate, who was still in Burma and who was known to have a strong dislike for the Indian Army, its diverse troop formations, and its British officers in particular. Wavell personally selected the commander of 111th Brigade, Brigadier Joe Lentaigne.

Wavell intended to use two Chindit brigades alternately during 1944. While one brigade was operating behind Japanese lines for two to three months at a time, the other would be resting in India, while training for and planning the next operation. However, Wingate returned from Quebec with authority to implement far more ambitious plans for the second expedition, which required that the force be greatly expanded to a strength of six brigades. Wingate refused to use Indian Army units in this force, because he maintained that their training in long-range penetration techniques would take longer and their maintenance by air would be difficult due to the varied dietary requirements of different Gurkha and Indian castes and religions, although he had little choice but to accept 111th Brigade, and two Gurkha battalions in 77th brigade. Since large numbers of trained British infantry were required, three brigades (the 14th, 16th and 23rd) were added to the Chindits by breaking up the experienced British 70th Infantry Division, much against the wishes of Lieutenant General William Slim and other commanders, who wished to use the division in a conventional role. A sixth brigade was added to the force by taking a brigade (the 3rd (West African) Infantry Brigade) from the British 81st (West Africa) Division.

At Quebec, Wingate had also succeeded in obtaining a "private" air force for the Chindits, the 1st Air Commando Group, mainly consisting of USAAF aircraft. The Chindits were greatly encouraged by having aircraft on which they could call immediately for supply drops, casualty evacuation and air support. Other welcome American aid was the "K" Ration pack which, although it provided insufficient calories for prolonged active operations, was far better than the equivalent British or Indian ration pack.

The forces for the second Chindit operation were called Special Force, officially 3rd Indian Infantry Division, or Long Range Penetration Groups, but the nickname, the Chindits, had already stuck.

The new Chindit force commenced training in Gwalior. Men were trained in crossing rivers, demolitions and bivouacking. Calvert and Fergusson, both newly promoted to Brigadier, took command of two of the brigades, and were responsible for much of the training program and the development of tactical planning. Wingate himself was absent for much of the training period, first being out of the country to attend the Quebec Conference and then struck ill with typhoid from drinking bad water in North Africa on his return.

Plans
The plans for the second Chindit operation went through many revisions.

The methods of the new Long Range Penetration force in 1944 differed from those of 1943. Wingate had decided on a strategy of creating fortified bases behind the Japanese lines, which would then send out raiding columns over short distances. This change was in part forced on him by strengthened Japanese patrols along the Burmese frontier, making a repeat of the successful infiltration in 1943 unlikely. In an imaginative move prompted by Colonel Philip Cochran's assurance that he could transport both troops and supplies by glider, Wingate arranged for the bulk of the force to enter Burma by air, greatly accelerating the force's ability to reach its target objectives. Advance units would land in gliders in preselected open fields in Burma, and prepare them for large-scale landings by transport aircraft. The lavish air support provided by Colonels Cochran and Alison of the 1st Air Commando Group proved critical to the success of the operation.

Wingate also had plans for a general uprising of the Kachin population of Northern Burma. He fought over these plans with the leadership of Force 136 (an organisation set up to liaise with resistance forces in Japanese-occupied countries), which was concerned that a premature uprising of the Kachins without a permanent British military presence would lead to their slaughter by the Japanese at the end of operations. Force 136 also had their own plans for a rising to be coordinated with the arrival of the regular army in Burma. Wingate was eventually convinced to scale back his original plans. Further complicating relations between the organisations were orders issued by Wingate to the commander of Dah Force (a British-led force of Kachin irregulars attached to the Chindits) not to coordinate operations with Force 136 for security reasons.

During the last months of 1943, planning was conducted to carry out the strategy for India as originally determined at the Quebec Conference. In November, the overall plan for the dry season campaign of 1944 determined by South East Asia Command focused on the use of the Chindits in the reconquest of northern Burma. These plans were approved by the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Cairo Conference and although other offensives in Burma were scaled back or cancelled, Stilwell's Northern Front offensive with the Chindits' participation survived the cuts. The uncertainty of the plans nevertheless meant that the plans and contingency plans for the use of the Chindits repeatedly changed up to the very start of operations.

The Chindits were assigned the task of helping the forces of Joseph Stilwell push the Ledo Road through northern Burma to link up with the Burma Road and re-establish an overland supply route to China, by mounting a long range penetration operation behind the Japanese opposing his forces on the Northern Front. It had originally been intended that the IV Corps would attack on the Central Front and cross the Chindwin to tie up Japanese forces which could otherwise be used to aid the Northern Front. As the Japanese launched their own attack on the Central Front this advance did not take place, but it still meant that most Japanese forces were engaged on the Central Front and were not available to reinforce the Japanese 18th Division on the Northern Front. The Japanese offensive on the Central Front resulted in further proposals and refinements of the plans for the Chindits.

On 4 February 1944, Lieutenant General Slim, commander of the British Fourteenth Army, and USAAF General George E. Stratemeyer, commander of Eastern Air Command, issued a joint directive to General Wingate and Cols. Cochran and Alison of the 1st Air Commando Group, to march and fly into Indaw and from there under the command of the Fourteenth Army carry out the objectives of:

"(i) Helping the advance of Stilwell's Ledo force on Myitkyina by cutting the communications of the Japanese 18th Division, harassing its rear, and preventing its reinforcement. (ii) Creating a favourable situation for the Yunnan Chinese forces to cross the Salween and enter Burma. (iii) Inflicting the greatest possible damage and confusion on the enemy in North Burma."

Operation Thursday
On 5 February 1944, Fergusson's 16th Brigade left Ledo for Burma. They avoided Japanese forces by traversing exceptionally difficult terrain. The rest of the Brigades were brought in by air to create fortified bases with airstrips.

Three landing zones, codenamed Piccadilly, Broadway and Chowringhee, were selected. Calvert's 77th Brigade prepared to fly by Hadrian glider into Piccadilly on the night of 5 March. A last-minute aerial reconnaissance revealed Piccadilly to be covered with logs, making landing impossible. In some accounts of the incident, Wingate insisted that the operation had been betrayed and that the other landing zones would be ambushed. To proceed would be "murder". Slim accepted the responsibility of ordering a willing Calvert to proceed with the operation, using Broadway instead. While Piccadilly had already been used to evacuate casualties during the first Chindit operation in 1943, Broadway had to be selected from the results of aerial reconnaissance. It turned out to be a poor landing ground and there were many casualties in crash landings, but Calvert's men were just able to make the strip fit to take transport aircraft the next day. Chindit gliders also landed on Chowringhee the next day, without opposition.

It was later revealed that the logs on Piccadilly had been placed there to dry by Burmese teak loggers. The real problem was the failure to maintain continuous observation of the landing zones (e.g. by high-flying Spitfire photo-reconnaissance aircraft) before the forces were deployed.

Over the next week, 600 sorties by Dakota transport aircraft transferred 9,000 men to the landing zones. Chowringhee was abandoned once the fly-in was completed, but Broadway was held with a garrison which included field artillery, anti-aircraft guns and even a detachment of six Mk.VIII Spitfires of No.81 Squadron RAF from 12 March to 17 March. On 17 March they were attacked during take-off by Japanese Ki-43 'Oscars'. S/L William 'Babe' Whitamore and F/O Alan M Peart managed to get airborne, with both shooting down one 'Oscar' each. Whitamore was shot down and killed but Peart survived for over half an hour, holding off over 20 enemy fighters. The remaining Spitfires were destroyed on the ground for the loss of another pilot, F/Lt Coulter. Peart flew back to Kangla the same day in his damaged Spitfire (FL-E JF818) and reported the action. The detachment was duly ended by AFC Stanley Vincent, the CO of No. 221 Group.

Fergusson's brigade set up another base named Aberdeen north of Indaw, into which 14th Brigade was flown. Calvert's brigade established yet another, named White City at Mawlu, astride the main railway and road leading to the Japanese northern front. 111 Brigade set up ambushes and roadblocks south of Indaw (although part of the brigade which landed at Chowringhee was delayed in crossing the Irrawaddy River), before moving west to Pinlebu.

Ferocious jungle fighting ensued around Broadway and White City. At times, British and Japanese troops were in close combat, bayonets and kukris against katanas. On 27 March, after days of aircraft attack, the Japanese attacked Broadway for several nights before the attack was repulsed with flown-in artillery and the aid of locally recruited Kachin irregulars.

However, a setback occurred when Fergusson's brigade tried to capture Indaw on 24 March. The original intention had been to seize the town and its airfields on 15 March but Fergusson had to report that this was impossible. Wingate appeared ready to change the brigade's mission but on 20 March, he reinstated Indaw as the target. The brigade was already exhausted from its long march, and there was no time to properly reconnoitre the objective. The units were dismayed to find that the Japanese controlled the only water sources. Fergusson expected that 14th Brigade would cooperate in the attack, but they moved west instead. Japanese reinforcements had also moved into Indaw, which was a major road and rail centre. Fergusson's battalions, attacking separately, were each repulsed. Calvert later commented "They had attacked as clutching fingers from all sides, and not as a fist". After this, most of the tired 16th Brigade were flown out.

Change of command
On 24 March, Wingate flew to Imphal to confer with air force commanders. On the return journey, the USAAF B-25 bomber in which he was flying is believed to have flown into a thunderstorm and crashed in the jungle-covered mountains. All aboard were killed.

Slim, the commander of the Fourteenth Army which had loose operational control over Special Force, selected Brigadier Lentaigne to be Wingate's replacement after conferring with Brigadier Derek Tulloch, Wingate's Chief of Staff. Lentaigne was judged to be the most balanced and experienced commander in the force; he had been an instructor at the Staff College at Quetta, had led a Gurkha battalion with distinction during the gruelling retreat from Burma in 1942 and had commanded a Chindit brigade in the field (albeit for only a few weeks, but none of the other brigade commanders had more experience). As an officer of Gurkha troops, he had a similar outlook and background to Slim. The other Chindit brigade commanders were unknown quantities, mostly without staff qualifications, some of whom had never even commanded a battalion-sized unit in combat before 1944, and Wingate's staff officers lacked the necessary combat experience. The force's second-in-command, Major General George William Symes, was bypassed by Slim and formally protested and asked to be relieved. In selecting Lentaigne, Slim did not take into account the tensions between those Chindit commanders and staff who were closely associated with Wingate, and Lentaigne, who had a classical "line" officer's background and had been critical of Wingate's methods and techniques.

The move north
Several major changes were made at the highest level. Much of the air support was diverted to the critical battles of Imphal and Kohima, where troops were cut off and could only be resupplied by air. 23rd Brigade, yet to fly in, was also despatched to Kohima. Those Chindits already operating in Burma were formally subordinated to General Joseph Stilwell, who ordered the Chindits to abandon their dispersed operations around Indaw, and concentrate on interdicting the supply lines to the Japanese forces opposing his Northern Combat Area Command.

In April, Lentaigne ordered the main body of 111 Brigade west of the Irrawaddy, now commanded by John Masters, to move north and build a new stronghold, codenamed Blackpool, which would block the railway and main road at Hopin, 30 mi south of Mogaung. Calvert was ordered to abandon White City and Broadway and move north to support Masters. Calvert was opposed to this, as his brigade had successfully held these two strongholds for months. Stilwell also feared that abandoning White City would allow Japanese reinforcements to move north. However, Lentaigne insisted that the Chindit brigades were too far apart to support each other, and that the airstrips at White City and Broadway would be unusable during the monsoon.

Masters's force established Blackpool on 8 May and was almost immediately engaged in fierce fighting. Whereas White City had been deep in the Japanese rear, its defenders had had plenty of time to prepare their defences and its attackers had been a mixed bag of detachments from several formations, Blackpool was close to the Japanese northern front, and was immediately attacked by Japanese troops with heavy artillery support. As Calvert and Stilwell had feared, abandoning White City had allowed the Japanese 53rd Division to move north from Indaw. A heavy attack against Blackpool was repulsed on 17 May, but a second attack on 24 May captured vital positions inside the defences.

Because the monsoon had broken and heavy rain made movement in the jungle very difficult, neither Calvert nor Brodie's 14th Brigade could help Masters. Finally, Masters had to abandon Blackpool on 25 May, because the men were exhausted after 17 days of continual combat. Nineteen Allied soldiers, who were so badly injured as to be beyond hope of recovery and could not be moved, were shot by the medical orderlies and hidden in heavy stands of bamboo.

Final operations
On 17 May, Slim had formally handed control of the Chindits to Stilwell. Stilwell insisted that the Chindits capture several well-defended Japanese positions. The Chindits had no support from tanks or artillery and this led to heavier casualties than before. According to David Rooney, the Chindits were misused under Stillwell's command and suffered heavy casualties undertaking roles that they were not trained or equipped for.

Over the period from 6 June to 27 June, Calvert's 77th Brigade took Mogaung and suffered 800 casualties – 50 per cent of the brigade's men involved in the operation. Fearing that they would then be ordered to join the siege of Myitkyina, Calvert handed Mogaung over to Force X, shut down his radios and retreated to Kamaing, where Stilwell had his headquarters. A court-martial was likely until Stilwell and Calvert met in person, and Stilwell finally appreciated the conditions under which the Chindits had been operating.

111 Brigade, after resting, was ordered to capture a hill south west of Mogaung, known as Point 2171. It did so but was now utterly exhausted. Most of the men were suffering from malaria, dysentery and malnutrition. On 8 July, at the insistence of the Supreme Commander, Admiral Louis Mountbatten, doctors examined the brigade. Of the 2,200 men present from four and a half battalions, only 119 were declared fit. The brigade was evacuated, although Masters sarcastically kept the fit men, "111 Company", in the field until 1 August.

The portion of 111 Brigade east of the Irrawaddy were known as Morris Force, after its commander, Lieutenant-Colonel J. R. "Jumbo" Morris. They had spent several months harassing Japanese traffic from Bhamo to Myitkyina. They had then attempted to complete the encirclement of Myitkyina. Stilwell was angered that they were unable to do so but Slim pointed out that Stilwell's Chinese troops (numbering 5,500) had also failed. By 14 July, Morris Force was down to three platoons. A week later, they only had 25 men fit for duty. Morris Force was evacuated about the same time as the 77th Brigade.

The 14th Brigade and the 3rd West African Brigade remained in action, assisting the newly arrived 36th Infantry Division in its advance down the "Railway Valley" south of Mogaung. Finally, they were relieved and withdrawn, starting on 17 August. The last Chindit left Burma on 27 August 1944.

Kohima
23rd Brigade, which had been diverted from the main Chindit campaign, nevertheless acted as a long range penetration unit behind the Japanese fighting at Kohima. From April to June 1944, they marched long distances through the Naga hills, mostly in monsoon weather which made movement very difficult. They contributed in large measure to the starvation of the Japanese at Kohima, the decisive factor in that battle. Although not engaged in major battles, they accounted for large numbers of Japanese stragglers and foragers, suffering 158 battle casualties themselves.

Disbanded
The Chindits had suffered heavy casualties: 1,396 killed and 2,434 wounded. Over half had to be confined to hospital and prescribed a special nutritional diet whilst hospitalised. As bad as the casualty figures may seem, those suffered by the force in 1943 were proportionally much higher.

The healthy men were sent to training camps to await new operations. However, when the army command evaluated the men and equipment required to return the Chindits to operational status, it was decided to transform the force into an Airborne Division in India. Beyond direct replacements, it was known that the British element of the Chindits would be decimated in 1945 by the need to repatriate personnel who had served more than four years overseas.

During the early months of 1945, several of the brigade headquarters and many of the veterans of the Chindit operations were reformed into the 14th and 77th Infantry Brigades and merged into the 44th Airborne Division (India), while the force headquarters and signals units formed the core of the Indian XXXIV Corps. The Chindits were finally disbanded in February 1945.

London memorial
There is a memorial to Orde Wingate and the Chindits on the north side of the Victoria Embankment next to the Ministry of Defence headquarters in London. The memorial was unveiled on 16 October 1990 by the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The front of the monument is in memory of the Chindits and also mentions the four men of the Chindits awarded the Victoria Cross: Major Frank Gerald Blaker, Captain Michael Allmand and Lieutenant George Albert Cairns and Rifleman Tulbahadur Pun. The battalions that took part are listed on the sides of the monument. Non-infantry units are mentioned by their parent formations only. No distinction is made between those units that took part in 1943 versus those of 1944. The rear of the monument is exclusively dedicated to Orde Wingate and also mentions his contributions to Israel. The memorial is a 4 metre (13 ft) high Portland stone pillar mounted on three steps, on which is a statue by Frank Forster of the chinthe, after which the Chindits are named.

Military legacy
Military historians disagree on the Chindits' military significance. The debate is part of the ongoing one of whether the deployment of special forces are a net asset to a campaign or whether the investment in time, material and men that such operations demand outweigh the advantages gained. For example, it is questioned whether the interdiction of Japanese supply lines during Operation Thursday by the Chindits contributed more to Stilwell's advance than if the resources committed to the operation had been used to provide Stilwell with another regular division to fight alongside his X Force. However, the Japanese subsequently admitted that the Chindits had disrupted their plans for the first half of 1943. Japanese commander, Mutaguchi Renya, later stated that Operation Thursday had a significant effect on the campaign, saying "The Chindit invasion ... had a decisive effect on these operations ... they drew off the whole of 53 Division and parts of 15 Division, one regiment of which would have turned the scales at Kohima."

The views of the majority of the post-war British military establishment were made succinctly by Slim (commander of the Fourteenth Army), when he wrote "'... the Chindits, gave a splendid example of courage and hardihood. Yet I came firmly to the conclusion that such formations, trained, equipped and mentally adjusted for one kind of operation were wasteful. They did not give, militarily, a worth-while return for the resources in men, materiel and time that they absorbed. ... [Special forces] were usually formed by attracting the best men ... The result of these methods was undoubtedly to lower the quality of the rest of the Army'."He makes several other arguments against special forces, about the danger of ordinary battalions thinking that some tasks could only be performed by special forces, and that special forces can only stay in the field for relatively short periods compared to regular battalions. He sums up that "Anything, whatever the short cuts to victory it may promise, which thus weakens the Army spirit is dangerous". To underline his point he suggests that "This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier, who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree". He does acknowledge the need for small units to stir up trouble in the enemy's rear area but does not make it clear if he is talking about V Force or the actions of Force 136.

Others, like Sir Robert Thompson, an ex-Chindit, have asserted that the idea behind the Chindits was a sound one but that they were just badly handled and used in operations for which they were not properly equipped or trained, for example in static defence. A third view is that, despite the relatively insignificant losses that the Chindits were able to inflict, their propaganda value in 1943, at a time when the Army was on the defensive, was a morale boost to the people of India and Britain, and helping to dispel the image of Japanese invincibility. It has been hard to reach a consensus on any of these issues due to the partisan nature of the discussions surrounding Wingate.

It has also been argued that the Chindits contributed to the overall success of the Allied armies in Burma through the innovations in air supply techniques and organisation that their operations required. The Allied air forces were later to use these tactics to supply increasingly large forces that were cut off by the enemy, or were operating independently of road or rail lines of communication. Conversely, it has been argued that the apparent success of the Chindits led some Japanese commanders to believe that they could employ their own incursion tactics on a much larger scale, and that when they came to implement such tactics during the Chindwin offensive of early 1944, lacking the necessary air support that had enabled the Allies to be successful, the result was disastrous and ultimately led to defeat at both Kohima and Imphal, and later on the plains of Burma in 1945.

Three of the Brigade commanders on Operation Thursday (two of whom had also served in the first Chindit expedition) subsequently wrote autobiographies, which contained their comments on the Chindits' concept and practice of operations. Bernard Fergusson, originally an enthusiastic supporter of Wingate, later came to feel that Wingate lacked both consistency and flexibility in his plans, which contributed to Fergusson's long, pointless march from Ledo and his defeat at Indaw. John Masters, who was a friend of Lentaigne, felt that the Chindits' mobility was sacrificed in holding fixed defensive positions or attacking strong Japanese positions, without the necessary support. In criticism of the whole Chindit concept, he pointed out that the Chindit force had the infantry strength of two and a half line divisions but without supporting arms, had the fighting strength of less than one. Michael Calvert, who was closest to Wingate, remained a defender of Wingate and his methods.

The 77th Brigade, raised in 2015 to engage in propaganda for the army, was named in tribute to the Chindits.

title: Chindits


text:
Tichborne case

The Tichborne case was a legal cause célèbre that captivated Victorian England in the 1860s and 1870s. It concerned the claims by a man sometimes referred to as Thomas Castro or as Arthur Orton, but usually termed "the Claimant", to be the missing heir to the Tichborne baronetcy. He failed to convince the courts, was convicted of perjury and served a long prison sentence.

Roger Tichborne, heir to the family's title and fortunes, was presumed to have died in a shipwreck in 1854 at age 25. His mother clung to a belief that he might have survived, and after hearing rumours that he had made his way to Australia, she advertised extensively in Australian newspapers, offering a reward for information. In 1866, a Wagga Wagga butcher known as Thomas Castro came forward claiming to be Roger Tichborne. Although his manners and bearing were unrefined, he gathered support and travelled to England. He was instantly accepted by Lady Tichborne as her son, although other family members were dismissive and sought to expose him as an impostor.

During protracted enquiries before the case went to court in 1871, details emerged suggesting that the Claimant might be Arthur Orton, a butcher's son from Wapping in London, who had gone to sea as a boy and had last been heard of in Australia. After a civil court had rejected the Claimant's case, he was charged with perjury; while awaiting trial he campaigned throughout the country to gain popular support. In 1874, a criminal court jury decided that he was not Roger Tichborne and declared him to be Arthur Orton. Before passing a sentence of 14 years, the judge condemned the behaviour of the Claimant's counsel, Edward Kenealy, who was subsequently disbarred because of his conduct.

After the trial, Kenealy instigated a popular radical reform movement, the Magna Charta Association, which championed the Claimant's cause for some years. Kenealy was elected to Parliament in 1875 as a radical independent but was not an effective parliamentarian. The movement was in decline when the Claimant was released in 1884, and he had no dealings with it. In 1895, he confessed to being Orton, only to recant almost immediately. He lived generally in poverty for the rest of his life and was destitute at the time of his death in 1898. Although most commentators have accepted the court's view that the Claimant was Orton, some analysts believe that an element of doubt remains as to his true identity and that, conceivably, he was Roger Tichborne.

Tichborne family history
The Tichbornes, of Tichborne Park near Alresford in Hampshire, were an old English Catholic family who had been prominent in the area since before the Norman Conquest. After the Reformation in the 16th century, although one of their number was hanged, drawn and quartered for complicity in the Babington Plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I, the family in general remained loyal to the Crown, and in 1621 Benjamin Tichborne was created a baronet for services to King James I. Sir Henry Tichborne, the seventh baronet, was travelling through Verdun, France, when the Peace of Amiens broke down in May 1803, reigniting the Napoleonic Wars. As an enemy citizen, he was detained by the French authorities, who held him in captivity as a civil prisoner for some years. He shared his captivity with his fourth son, James, and a nobly born Englishman, Henry Seymour of Knoyle. During his confinement, Seymour managed to conduct an affair with the daughter of the Duc de Bourbon, which produced a daughter, Henriette Felicité, born in about 1807. Years later, when Henriette had passed her 20th birthday and remained unmarried, Seymour thought his former companion James Tichborne might make a suitable husband—although James was close to his own age and was physically unprepossessing. The couple were married in August 1827; on 5 January 1829 Henriette gave birth to a son, Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne.

Sir Henry had been succeeded in 1821 by his eldest son, Henry Joseph, who fathered seven daughters but no male heir. As baronetcies are inherited only by males, when Henry Joseph died in 1845 the immediate heir was his younger brother Edward, who had assumed the surname of Doughty as a condition of a legacy. Edward's only son died in childhood, so James Tichborne became next in line to the baronetcy, and after him, Roger. As the family's fortunes had been greatly augmented by the Doughty bequest, this was a considerable material prospect.

After Roger's birth, James and Henriette had three more children: two daughters who died in infancy and a second son, Alfred, born in 1839. The marriage was unhappy, and the couple spent much time apart, he in England, she in Paris with Roger. As a consequence of his upbringing, Roger spoke mainly French, and his English was heavily accented. In 1845 James decided that Roger should complete his education in England and placed him in the Jesuit boarding school Stonyhurst College, where he remained until 1848. In 1849 he sat the British army entrance examinations and then took a commission in the 6th Dragoon Guards, in which he served for three years, mainly in Ireland.

When on leave, Roger often stayed with his uncle Edward at Tichborne Park and became attracted to his cousin Katherine Doughty, four years his junior. Sir Edward and his wife, though they were fond of their nephew, did not consider marriage between first cousins desirable. At one point the young couple were forbidden to meet, though they continued to do so clandestinely. Feeling harassed and frustrated, Roger hoped to escape from the situation through a spell of overseas military duty; when it became clear that the regiment would remain in the British Isles, he resigned his commission. On 1 March 1853 he left for a private tour of South America on board La Pauline, bound for Valparaíso in Chile.

Travels and disappearance
On 19 June 1853 La Pauline reached Valparaíso, where letters informed Roger that his father had succeeded to the baronetcy, Sir Edward having died in May. In all, Roger spent 10 months in South America, accompanied in the first stages by a family servant, John Moore. In the course of his inland travels he may have visited the small town of Melipilla, which lies on the route between Valparaíso and Santiago. Moore, who had fallen ill, was paid off in Santiago, while Roger travelled to Peru, where he took a long hunting trip. By the end of 1853 he was back in Valparaíso, and early in the new year he began a crossing of the Andes. At the end of January, he reached Buenos Aires, where he wrote to his aunt, Lady Doughty, indicating that he was heading for Brazil, then Jamaica and finally Mexico. The last positive sightings of Roger were in Rio de Janeiro, in April 1854, awaiting a sea passage to Jamaica. Although he lacked a passport, he secured a berth on a ship, the Bella, which sailed for Jamaica on 20 April.

On 24 April 1854 a capsized ship's boat bearing the name Bella was discovered off the Brazilian coast, together with some wreckage but no personnel, and the ship's loss with all hands was assumed. The Tichborne family were told in June that Roger must be presumed lost, though they retained a faint hope, fed by rumours, that another ship had picked up survivors and taken them to Australia. Sir James Tichborne died in June 1862, at which point, if he was alive, Roger became the 11th baronet. As he was by then presumed dead, the title passed to his younger brother Alfred, whose financial recklessness rapidly brought about his near-bankruptcy. Tichborne Park was vacated and leased to tenants.

Encouraged by a clairvoyant's assurance that her elder son was alive and well, in February 1863 Roger's mother Henriette, now Lady Tichborne, began placing regular newspaper advertisements in The Times offering a reward for information about Roger Tichborne and the fate of the Bella. None of these produced results; however, in May 1865 Lady Tichborne saw an advertisement placed by Arthur Cubitt of Sydney, Australia, on behalf of his "Missing Friends Agency". She wrote to him, and he agreed to place a series of notices in Australian newspapers. These gave details of the Bella ' s last voyage and described Roger Tichborne as "of a delicate constitution, rather tall, with very light brown hair and blue eyes". A "most liberal reward" would be given "for any information that may definitely point out his fate".

In Australia
In October 1865 Cubitt informed Lady Tichborne that William Gibbes, a lawyer from Wagga Wagga, had identified Roger Tichborne in the person of a bankrupt local butcher using the name Thomas Castro. During his bankruptcy examination Castro had mentioned an entitlement to property in England. He had also talked of experiencing a shipwreck and was smoking a briar pipe which carried the initials "R.C.T." When challenged by Gibbes to reveal his true name, Castro had initially been reticent but eventually agreed that he was indeed the missing Roger Tichborne; henceforth he became generally known as the Claimant.

Cubitt offered to accompany the supposed lost son back to England and wrote to Lady Tichborne requesting funds. Meanwhile, Gibbes asked the Claimant to make out a will and to write to his mother. The will incorrectly gave Lady Tichborne's name as "Hannah Frances", and disposed of numerous nonexistent parcels of supposed Tichborne property. In the letter to his mother, the Claimant's references to his former life were vague and equivocal but were enough to convince Lady Tichborne that he was her elder son. Her willingness to accept the Claimant may have been influenced by the death of her younger son, Alfred, in February.

In June 1866 the Claimant moved to Sydney, where he was able to raise money from banks on the basis of a statutory declaration that he was Roger Tichborne. The statement was later found to contain many errors, although the birthdate and parentage details were given correctly. It included a brief account of how he had arrived in Australia: he and others from the sinking Bella, he said, had been picked up by the Osprey, bound for Melbourne. On arrival he had taken the name Thomas Castro from an acquaintance from Melipilla and had wandered for some years before settling in Wagga Wagga. He had married a pregnant housemaid, Mary Ann Bryant, and taken her child, a daughter, as his own; a further daughter had been born in March 1866.

While in Sydney the Claimant encountered two former servants of the Tichborne family. One was a gardener, Michael Guilfoyle, who at first acknowledged the identity of Roger Tichborne but later changed his mind when asked to provide money to facilitate the return to England. The second, Andrew Bogle, was a former slave at the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos's plantation in Jamaica who had thereafter worked for Sir Edward for many years before retiring. The elderly Bogle did not immediately recognise the Claimant, whose 189 lb weight contrasted sharply with Roger's remembered slender build; however, Bogle quickly accepted that the Claimant was Roger, and remained convinced until the end of his life. On 2 September 1866 the Claimant, having received funds from England, sailed from Sydney on board the Rakaia with his wife and children in first class, and a small retinue including Bogle and his youngest son Henry George in second class. Good living in Sydney had raised his weight on departure to 210 lb, and during the long voyage he added another 40 lb. After a journey involving several changes of ship, the party arrived at Tilbury on 25 December 1866.

Recognition in France
After depositing his family in a London hotel, the Claimant called at Lady Tichborne's address and was told she was in Paris. He then went to Wapping in East London, where he enquired after a local family named Orton. Finding that they had left the area, he identified himself to a neighbour as a friend of Arthur Orton, who, he said, was now one of the wealthiest men in Australia. The significance of the Wapping visit would become apparent only later. On 29 December the Claimant visited Alresford and stayed at the Swan Hotel, where the landlord detected a resemblance to the Tichbornes. The Claimant confided that he was the missing Sir Roger but asked that this be kept secret. He also sought information concerning the Tichborne family.

Back in London, the Claimant employed a solicitor, John Holmes, who agreed to go with him to Paris to meet Lady Tichborne. This meeting took place on 11 January at the Hôtel de Lille. As soon as she saw his face, Lady Tichborne accepted him. At Holmes's behest she lodged with the British Embassy a signed declaration formally testifying that the Claimant was her son. She was unmoved when Father Châtillon, Roger's childhood tutor, declared the Claimant an impostor, and she allowed Holmes to inform The Times in London that she had recognised Roger. She settled an income of £1,000 a year on him, and accompanied him to England to declare her support before the more sceptical members of the Tichborne family.

Support and opposition
The Claimant quickly acquired significant supporters; the Tichborne family's solicitor Edward Hopkins accepted him, as did J. P. Lipscomb, the family's doctor. Lipscomb, after a detailed medical examination, reported that the Claimant possessed a distinctive genital malformation. It would later be suggested that Roger Tichborne had this same defect, but this could not be established beyond speculation and hearsay. Many people were impressed by the Claimant's seeming ability to recall small details of Roger Tichborne's early life, such as the fly fishing tackle he had used. Several soldiers who had served with Roger in the Dragoons, including his former batman Thomas Carter, recognised the Claimant as Roger. Other notable supporters included Lord Rivers, a landowner and sportsman, and Guildford Onslow, the Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Guildford who became one of the Claimant's staunchest advocates. Rohan MacWilliam, in his account of the case, calls this wide degree of recognition remarkable, particularly given the Claimant's increasing physical differences from the slim Roger. By mid-June 1867 the Claimant's weight had reached almost 300 lb and would increase even more in the ensuing years.

Despite Lady Tichborne's insistence that the Claimant was her son, the rest of the Tichbornes and their related families were almost unanimous in declaring him a fraud. They recognised Alfred Tichborne's infant son, Henry Alfred, as the 12th baronet. Lady Doughty, Sir Edward's widow, had initially accepted the evidence from Australia but changed her mind soon after the Claimant's arrival in England. Lady Tichborne's brother Henry Seymour denounced the Claimant as false when he found that the latter neither spoke nor understood French (Roger's first language as a child) and lacked any trace of a French accent. The Claimant was unable to identify several family members and complained about attempts to catch him out by presenting him with impostors. Vincent Gosford, a former Tichborne Park steward, was unimpressed by the Claimant, who, when asked to name the contents of a sealed package that Roger left with Gosford before his departure in 1853, said he could not remember. The family believed that the Claimant had acquired from Bogle and other sources information that enabled him to demonstrate some knowledge of the family's affairs, including, for example, the locations of certain pictures in Tichborne Park. Apart from Lady Tichborne, a distant cousin, Anthony John Wright Biddulph, was the only relation who accepted the Claimant as genuine; however, as long as Lady Tichborne was alive and maintaining her support, the Claimant's position remained strong.

On 31 July 1867 the Claimant underwent a judicial examination at the Chancery Division of the Royal Courts of Justice. He testified that after his arrival in Melbourne in July 1854 he had worked for William Foster at a cattle station in Gippsland under the name of Thomas Castro. While there, he had met Arthur Orton, a fellow Englishman. After leaving Foster's employment the Claimant had subsequently wandered the country, sometimes with Orton, working in various capacities before setting up as a butcher in Wagga Wagga in 1865. On the basis of this information, the Tichborne family sent an agent, John Mackenzie, to Australia to make further enquiries. Mackenzie located Foster's widow, who produced the old station records. These showed no reference to "Thomas Castro", although the employment of an "Arthur Orton" was recorded. Foster's widow also identified a photograph of the Claimant as Arthur Orton, thus providing the first direct evidence that the Claimant might in fact be Orton. In Wagga Wagga one local resident recalled the butcher Castro saying that he had learned his trade in Wapping. When this information reached London, enquiries were made in Wapping by a private detective, ex-police inspector Jack Whicher, and the Claimant's visit in December 1866 was revealed.

Arthur Orton
Arthur Orton, a butcher's son born on 20 March 1834 in Wapping, had gone to sea as a boy and had been in Chile in the early 1850s. Sometime in 1852 he arrived in Hobart, Tasmania, in the transport ship Middleton and later moved to mainland Australia. His employment by Foster at Gippsland terminated around 1857 with a dispute over wages. Thereafter he disappears; if he was not Castro, there is no further direct evidence of Orton's existence, although strenuous efforts were made to find him. The Claimant hinted that some of his activities with Orton were of a criminal nature and that to confound the authorities they had sometimes exchanged names. Most of Orton's family failed to recognise the Claimant as their long-lost kinsman, although it was later revealed that he had paid them money. However, a former sweetheart of Orton's, Mary Ann Loder, did identify the Claimant as Orton.

Financial problems
Lady Tichborne died on 12 March 1868, thus depriving the Claimant of his principal advocate and his main source of income. He outraged the family by insisting on taking the position of chief mourner at her funeral mass. His lost income was rapidly replaced by a fund, set up by supporters, that provided a house near Alresford and an income of £1,400 a year.

In September 1868, together with his legal team, the Claimant went to South America to meet face-to-face with potential witnesses in Melipilla who might confirm his identity. He disembarked at Buenos Aires, ostensibly to travel to Valparaíso overland and there rejoin his advisers who were continuing by sea. After waiting two months in Buenos Aires he caught a ship home. His explanations for this sudden retreat—poor health and the dangers from brigands—did not convince his backers, many of whom withdrew their support; Holmes resigned as his solicitor. Furthermore, on their return his advisers reported that no one in Melipilla had heard of "Tichborne", although they remembered a young English sailor called "Arturo".

The Claimant was now bankrupt. In 1870 his new legal advisers launched a novel fundraising scheme: Tichborne Bonds, an issue of 1,000 debentures of £100 face value, the holders of which would be repaid with interest when the Claimant obtained his inheritance. About £40,000 was raised, though the bonds quickly traded at a considerable discount and were soon being exchanged for derisory sums. The scheme allowed the Claimant to continue to meet his living and legal expenses for a while. After a delay while the Franco-Prussian War and its aftermath prevented key witnesses from leaving Paris, the civil case that the Claimant hoped would confirm his identity finally came to court in May 1871.

Civil case: Tichborne v. Lushington, 1871–72
The case was listed in the Court of Common Pleas as Tichborne v. Lushington, in the form of an action for the ejectment of Colonel Lushington, the tenant of Tichborne Park. The real purpose, however, was to establish the Claimant's identity as Sir Roger Tichborne and his rights to the family's estates; failure on his part would expose him as an impostor. In addition to Tichborne Park's 2290 acres, the estates included manors, lands and farms in Hampshire, and considerable properties in London and elsewhere, which altogether produced an annual income of over £20,000, equivalent to about £ in.

Evidence and cross-examination
The hearing, which took place within the Palace of Westminster, began on 11 May 1871 before Sir William Bovill, who was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. The Claimant's legal team was led by William Ballantine and Harding Giffard, both highly experienced advocates. Opposing them, acting on instructions from the bulk of the Tichborne family, were John Duke Coleridge, the Solicitor General (he was promoted to Attorney-General during the hearing), and Henry Hawkins, a future High Court judge who was then at the height of his powers as a cross-examiner. In his opening speech, Ballantine made much of Roger Tichborne's unhappy childhood, his overbearing father, his poor education and his frequently unwise choices of companions. The Claimant's experiences in an open boat following the wreck of the Bella had, said Ballantine, impaired his memories of his earlier years, which explained his uncertain recall. Attempts to identify his client as Arthur Orton were, Ballantine argued, the concoctions of "irresponsible" private investigators acting for the Tichborne family.

The first witnesses for the Claimant included former officers and men from Roger Tichborne's regiment, all of whom declared their belief that he was genuine. Among servants and former servants of the Tichborne family called by Ballantine was John Moore, Roger's valet in South America. He testified that the Claimant had remembered many small details of their months together, including clothing worn and the name of a pet dog the pair had adopted. Roger's cousin Anthony Biddulph explained that he had accepted the Claimant only after spending much time in his company.

On 30 May Ballantine called the Claimant to the stand. During his examination-in-chief, the Claimant answered questions on Arthur Orton, whom he described as "a large-boned man with sharp features and a lengthy face slightly marked with smallpox". He had lost sight of Orton between 1862 and 1865, but they had met again in Wagga Wagga, where the Claimant had discussed his inheritance. Under cross-examination the Claimant was evasive when pressed for further details of his relationship with Orton, saying that he did not wish to incriminate himself. After questioning him on his visit to Wapping, Hawkins asked him directly: "Are you Arthur Orton?" to which he replied "I am not". The Claimant displayed considerable ignorance when questioned about his time at Stonyhurst. He could not identify Virgil, confused Latin with Greek, and did not understand what chemistry was. He caused a sensation when he declared that he had seduced Katherine Doughty and that the sealed package given to Gosford, the contents of which he earlier claimed not to recall, contained instructions to be followed in the event of her pregnancy. Rohan McWilliam, in his chronicle of the affair, comments that from that point on the Tichborne family were fighting not only for their estates but for Katherine Doughty's honour.

Collapse of the case
On 7 July the court adjourned for four months. When it resumed, Ballantine called more witnesses, including Bogle and Francis Baigent, a close family friend. Hawkins contended that Bogle and Baigent were feeding the Claimant with information, but in cross-examination he could not dent their belief that the Claimant was genuine. In January 1872 Coleridge began the case for the defence with a speech during which he categorised the Claimant as comparable with "the great impostors of history". He intended to prove that the Claimant was Arthur Orton. He had over 200 witnesses lined up, but it transpired that few were required. Lord Bellew, who had known Roger Tichborne at Stonyhurst, testified that Roger had distinctive body tattoos which the Claimant did not possess. On 4 March the jury notified the judge that they had heard enough and were ready to reject the Claimant's suit. Having ascertained that this decision was based on the evidence as a whole and not solely on the missing tattoos, Bovill ordered the Claimant's arrest on charges of perjury and committed him to Newgate Prison.

Appeal to the public, 1872–73

From his cell in Newgate, the Claimant vowed to resume the fight as soon as he was acquitted. On 25 March 1872 he published in the Evening Standard an "Appeal to the Public", requesting financial help to meet his legal and living costs: "I appeal to every British soul who is inspired by a love of justice and fair play, and is willing to defend the weak against the strong". The Claimant had gained considerable popular support during the civil trial; his fight was perceived by many as symbolising the problems faced by the working class when seeking justice in the courts. In the wake of his appeal, support committees were formed throughout the country. When he was bailed early in April, on sureties provided by Lord Rivers and Guildford Onslow, a large crowd cheered him as he left the Old Bailey.

At a public meeting in Alresford on 14 May, Onslow reported that subscriptions to the defence fund were already pouring in and that invitations to visit and speak had been received from many towns. As the Claimant addressed meetings up and down the country, journalists following the campaign often commented on his pronounced cockney accent, suggestive of East London origins. The campaign drew in some high-level supporters, among whom was George Hammond Whalley, a controversial anti-Catholic who was MP for Peterborough. He and Onslow were sometimes incautious in their speeches; after a meeting in St James's Hall, London, on 11 December 1872, each made specific charges against the Attorney General and the Government of trying to pervert the course of justice. They were fined £100 each for contempt of court.

With few exceptions, the mainstream press was hostile to the Claimant's campaign. To counteract this, his supporters launched two short-lived newspapers, the Tichborne Gazette in May 1872 and the Tichborne News and Anti-Oppression Journal in June. The former was wholly devoted to the Claimant's cause and ran until Onslow's and Whalley's contempt convictions in December 1872. The Tichborne News, which concerned itself with a broader range of perceived injustices, closed after four months.

Judges and counsel
The criminal case, to be heard in the Queen's Bench, was listed as Regina v. Castro, the name Castro being the last uncontested alias of the Claimant. Because of its expected length, the case was scheduled as a trial at bar, a device that allowed a panel rather than one judge to hear it. The president of the panel was Sir Alexander Cockburn, the Lord Chief Justice. His decision to hear this case was controversial, since during the civil case he had publicly denounced the Claimant as a perjurer and a slanderer. Cockburn's co-judges were Sir John Mellor and Sir Robert Lush, experienced Queen's Bench justices.

The prosecution team was largely that which had opposed the Claimant in the civil case, minus Coleridge. Hawkins led the team, his main assistants being Charles Bowen and James Mathew. The Claimant's team was significantly weaker; he would not re-engage Ballantine and his other civil case lawyers declined to act for him again. Others refused the case, possibly because they knew they would have to present evidence concerning the seduction of Katherine Doughty. The Claimant's backers eventually engaged Edward Kenealy, an Irish lawyer of acknowledged gifts but known eccentricity. Kenealy had previously featured in several prominent defences, including those of the poisoner William Palmer and the leaders of the 1867 Fenian Rising. He was assisted by undistinguished juniors: Patrick MacMahon, an Irish MP who was frequently absent, and the young and inexperienced Cooper Wyld. Kenealy's task was made more difficult when several of his upper-class witnesses refused to appear, perhaps afraid of the ridicule they anticipated from the Crown's lawyers. Other important witnesses from the civil case, including Moore, Baigent and Lipscombe, would not give evidence at the criminal trial.

Trial
The trial, one of the lengthiest cases heard in an English court, began on 21 April 1873 and lasted until 28 February 1874, occupying 188 court days. The tone was dominated by Kenealy's confrontational style; his personal attacks extended not only to witnesses but to the Bench and led to frequent clashes with Cockburn. Under the legal rules that then applied to criminal cases, the Claimant, though present in court, was not allowed to testify. Away from the court he revelled in his celebrity status; the American writer Mark Twain, who was then in London, attended an event at which the Claimant was present and "thought him a rather fine and stately figure". Twain observed that the company were "educated men, men moving in good society. ... It was 'Sir Roger', always 'Sir Roger' on all hands, no one withheld the title".

Altogether, Hawkins called 215 witnesses, including numbers from France, Melipilla, Australia and Wapping, who testified either that the Claimant was not Roger Tichborne or that he was Arthur Orton. A handwriting expert swore that the Claimant's writing resembled Orton's but not Roger Tichborne's. The entire story of rescue by the Osprey was, Hawkins asserted, a fraud. A ship of that name had arrived in Melbourne in July 1854 but did not correspond to the Claimant's description. Furthermore, the Claimant had provided the wrong name for Ospreys captain, and the names he gave for two of Ospreys crew were found to belong to members of the crew of the Middleton, the ship which had landed Orton at Hobart. No mention of a rescue had been found in Osprey's log or in the Melbourne harbourmaster's records. Giving evidence on the contents of the sealed packet, Gosford revealed that it contained information regarding the disposition of certain properties, but nothing relating to Katherine Doughty's seduction or pregnancy.

Kenealy's defence was that the Claimant was victim of a conspiracy which encompassed the Catholic Church, the government and the legal establishment. He frequently sought to demolish witnesses' character, as with Lord Bellew, whose reputation he destroyed by revealing details of the peer's adultery. Kenealy's own witnesses included Bogle and Biddulph, who remained steadfast, but more sensational testimony came from a sailor called Jean Luie, who claimed that he had been on the Osprey during the rescue mission. Luie identified the Claimant as "Mr Rogers", one of six survivors picked up and taken to Melbourne. On investigation Luie was found to be an impostor, a former prisoner who had been in England at the time of the Bella's sinking. He was convicted of perjury and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.

Summing-up, verdict and sentence
After closing addresses from Kenealy and Hawkins, Cockburn began summing-up on 29 January 1874. His speech was prefaced by a severe denunciation of Kenealy's conduct, "the longest, severest and best merited rebuke ever administered from the Bench to a member of the bar" according to the trial's chronicler John Morse. The tone of the summing-up was partisan, frequently drawing the jury's attention to the Claimant's "gross and astonishing ignorance" of things he would certainly know if he were Roger Tichborne. Cockburn rejected the Claimant's version of the sealed package contents and all imputations against Katherine Doughty's honour. Of Cockburn's peroration, Morse remarked that "never was a more resolute determination manifested [by a judge] to control the result". While much of the press applauded Cockburn's forthrightness, his summing-up was also criticised as "a Niagara of condemnation" rather than an impartial review.

The jury retired at noon on Saturday 28 February, and returned to the court within 30 minutes. Their verdict declared that the Claimant was not Roger Tichborne, that he had not seduced Katherine Doughty, and that he was indeed Arthur Orton. He was thus convicted of perjury. The jury added a condemnation of Kenealy's conduct during the trial. After the judges refused his request to address the court, the Claimant was sentenced to two consecutive terms of seven years' imprisonment. Kenealy's behaviour ended his legal career; he was expelled from the Oxford circuit mess and from Gray's Inn, so that he could no longer practise. On 2 December 1874 the Lord Chancellor revoked Kenealy's patent as a Queen's Counsel.

Popular movement
The court's verdict swelled the popular tide in favour of the Claimant. He and Kenealy were hailed as heroes, the latter as a martyr who had sacrificed his legal career. George Bernard Shaw, writing much later, highlighted the paradox whereby the Claimant was perceived simultaneously as a legitimate baronet and as a working-class man denied his legal rights by a ruling elite. In April 1874 Kenealy launched a political organisation, the "Magna Charta Association", with a broad agenda that reflected some of the Chartist demands of the 1830s and 1840s. In February 1875 Kenealy fought a parliamentary by-election for Stoke-upon-Trent as "The People's Candidate", and won with a resounding majority. However, he failed to persuade the House of Commons to establish a royal commission into the Tichborne trial, his proposal securing only his own vote and the support of two non-voting tellers, against 433 opposed. Thereafter, within parliament Kenealy became a generally derided figure, and most of his campaigning was conducted elsewhere. In the years of the Tichborne movement's popularity a considerable market was created for souvenirs in the form of medallions, china figurines, teacloths and other memorabilia. However, by 1880 interest in the case had declined, and in the General Election of that year Kenealy was heavily defeated. He died of heart failure before polling closed in the election. The Magna Charta Association continued for several more years, with dwindling support; The Englishman, the newspaper founded by Kenealy during the trial, closed down in May 1886, and there is no evidence of the Association's continuing activities after that date.

Claimant's release and final years
The Claimant was released on licence on 11 October 1884 after serving 10 years. He was much slimmer; a letter to Onslow dated May 1875 reports a loss of 148 lb. Throughout his imprisonment he had maintained that he was Roger Tichborne, but on release he disappointed supporters by showing no interest in the Magna Charta Association, instead signing a contract to tour with music halls and circuses. The British public's interest in him had largely waned; in 1886 he went to New York but failed to inspire any enthusiasm there and ended up working as a bartender.

He returned in 1887 to England, where, although not officially divorced from Mary Ann Bryant, he married a music hall singer, Lily Enever. In 1895, for a fee of a few hundred pounds, he confessed in The People newspaper that he was, after all, Arthur Orton. With the proceeds he opened a small tobacconist's shop in Islington; however, he quickly retracted the confession and insisted again that he was Roger Tichborne. His shop failed, as did other business attempts, and he died destitute, of heart disease, on 1 April 1898. His funeral caused a brief revival of interest; around 5,000 people attended Paddington cemetery for the burial in an unmarked pauper's grave. In what McWilliam calls "an act of extraordinary generosity" the Tichborne family allowed a card bearing the name "Sir Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne" to be placed on the coffin before its interment. The name "Tichborne" was registered in the cemetery's records.

Appraisal
Commentators have generally accepted the trial jury's verdict that the Claimant was Arthur Orton. However, McWilliam cites the monumental study by Douglas Woodruff (1957), in which the author posits that the Claimant could just possibly have been Roger Tichborne. Woodruff's principal argument is the sheer improbability that anyone could conceive such an imposture from scratch, at such a distance, and then implement it: "[I]t was carrying effrontery beyond the bounds of sanity if Arthur Orton embarked with a wife and retinue and crossed the world, knowing that they would all be destitute if he did not succeed in convincing a woman he had never met and knew nothing about first-hand, that he was her son".

In 1876, while the Claimant was serving his prison sentence, interest was briefly raised by the claims of William Cresswell, an inmate of a Sydney lunatic asylum, that he was Arthur Orton. There was circumstantial evidence that indicated some connection with Orton, and the Claimant's supporters campaigned to have Cresswell brought to England. Nothing came of this, although the question of Cresswell's possible identity remained a matter of dispute for years. In 1884 a Sydney court found the matter undecided, and ruled that the status quo should be maintained; Cresswell stayed in the asylum. Shortly before his death in 1904 he was visited by the contemporaneous Lady Tichborne, who found no physical resemblance to any member of the Tichborne family.

Attempts have been made to reconcile some of the troubling uncertainties and contradictions within the case. To explain the degree of facial resemblance (which even Cockburn accepted) of the Claimant to the Tichborne family, Onslow suggested in The Englishman that Orton's mother, a woman named Mary Kent, was an illegitimate daughter of Sir Henry Tichborne, Roger Tichborne's grandfather. An alternative story has Mary Kent being seduced by James Tichborne, making Orton and Roger half-brothers. Other versions have Orton and Roger as companions in crime in Australia, with Orton killing Roger and assuming his identity. The Claimant's daughter by Mary Ann Bryant, Teresa Mary Agnes, maintained that her father confessed to her that he had killed Arthur Orton and thus could not disclose details of his Australian years. There is no direct evidence for any of these theories. Teresa continued to proclaim her identity as a Tichborne daughter, and in 1924 was imprisoned for making threats and demands for money to the family.

Woodruff submits that the legal verdicts, although fair given the evidence before the courts, have not fully resolved the "great doubt" that Cockburn admitted hung over the case. Woodruff wrote in 1957: "Probably for ever, now, its key long since lost... a mystery remains". A 1998 article in The Catholic Herald suggested that DNA profiling might resolve the mystery. The enigma has launched numerous retellings of the story in book and film, including the short story "Tom Castro, the Implausible Imposter" from Jorge Luis Borges's Universal History of Infamy, and David Yates's 1998 film The Tichborne Claimant. Thus, Woodruff concludes, "the man who lost himself still walks in history, with no other name than that which the common voice of his day accorded him: the Claimant".

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Tichborne case


text:
108 Mile Ranch

108 Mile Ranch is a residential community of 700 homes situated in the South Cariboo region of British Columbia located in a historic area of ranches and lakes.

Historically, en route to the great Cariboo Gold Rush, a few of the travellers settled here.

In the late 1960, Arthur and Henry Block developed the 108 Ranch into a weekend holiday venue, building a golf course, with a restaurant, coffee shop and pro shop, a hotel and an airport. It grew from an original 25 families to a large scale residential community.

A feature of the 108 community is its green belt lands. Comprising more than 1500 acre these community parklands include 108 and Sepa Lakes, Walker Valley and many small patches scattered around the ranch.

108 Mile Ranch is about 12 km north of 100 Mile House, just off Highway 97. South Cariboo Regional Airport is the regional facility for the South Cariboo. Located on Highway 97, The 108 Heritage Site is a tourist attraction with its growing number of restored buildings, including the largest log barn in Canada.

Airports
South Cariboo Regional Airport or 108 Mile Ranch Airport (IATA: ZMH, ICAO: CZML) is a registered aerodrome located 5.3 NM northwest of the city. It is the regional aerodrome for the South Cariboo Regional District, with capabilities of handling commercial passenger service, MEDEVAC, flight training, and corporate traffic.

title: 108 Mile Ranch