Rex King-Clark

A welcome if lightweight chronicle of the true life story of 'Mad' Jack Churchill, one of those quintessentially British eccentrics who, amongst other exploits, fought World War Two armed with a claymore and a bow and arrow, whilst playing the bagpipes and wearing a kilt. He was English.

Given the wealth of Churchill's eccentricities – he was both a Commando and a PoW in the war, marched unarmed and unscathed through an Arab ambush during the Palestine Mandate under the reasoning that "people are less likely to shoot at you if you smile at them" (pg. 48) and, in civilian life, he would throw his briefcase out the window of his commuter train home so it would land in his back garden – you would think there'd be a wealth of words expended on the man. But Unlimited Boldness, written by his friend Rex King-Clark, clocks in at a disappointing twenty pages (including pictures). Even the 2015 edition, studiously composed by Robert Forsyth and padded out with a chapter from another of Clark's books (in which he and Churchill go on a pre-war grand tour of Europe) and various other miscellanea, rustles up only sixty pages (including pictures), of which two are blank.

It is a disappointing return on a fascinating, larger-than-life individual. I first became aware of Churchill through a number of Internet articles (on Cracked, ListVerse, Badass of the Week, and this more sophisticated offering from the Warfare History Network) but in truth they're all recycling the same anecdotes with various levels of incredulity. (Though none could be as incredulous as the German soldier in France who turned to see a fletched arrow sticking out of his comrade.) Clark hails Churchill as a member of "that small, curious band of battlefield genii" (pg. 45) which Great Britain used to turn out so proudly, and given the continued thirst for tales of this ilk, it is strange that his exploits have not been seized upon more vigorously. Clark concludes that "we could do with more like Jack Churchill… but, perhaps, not too many more!" (pg. 52), but, even moreso, we could do with more about Jack Churchill.… (mehr)