Latest / Ridiculous History / 'Mad' Jack Churchill: The Bagpipe Playing Soldier Who Hunted Nazis with a Longbow - Part 1

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'Mad' Jack Churchill: The Bagpipe Playing Soldier Who Hunted Nazis with a Longbow - Part 1 · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Any
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for tuning in Ridiculous Historians. Welcome to
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the show. My name is Ben. And that was a quote.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I don't know why I like that makes
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: me laugh. Um, I thought I was hoping it was
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: just coming directly from you, and that was you just
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: chastising people who are not properly accessorized with their sword
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: oddestly enough yet. Know you and I have forgotten our
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: swords today, but our super producer, Casey Pegram is probably
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: still strapped. He's got two of them like across his
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: back like a ninja turtle at all times for sure.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: So okay, Ben, I'm gonna we're gonna need a little
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: context about that. But that's that that quote there, that's true.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: That is that is not a quotation from me, it's
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: not one from Casey, it's not one from you. It's
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: just a quote that we all three happen to agree with.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: The source of this quote is a man named Lieutenant
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Colonel John mad Jack Churchill, and he was not referring
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: to a sword in a metaphorical sense, was he No,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: he wasn't. He was referring to you know, ceremonial military sword.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: You know, that's part of the whole get up, um
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: it was. It really is more ceremonial than anything. I
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: don't know, there was too much sword play going on
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: in the battlefield, But this is a man who was very,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: very concerned with tradition. Yeah, and his sword was a
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: little bit less ceremonial the old and most right. He
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: was Scottish and he had a Scottish broadsword that he
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: took with him to battle in World War Two. This
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: is a guy who is somehow not a character in
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: a Quentin Tarantino film yet. And today on this episode,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: we're going to learn a little bit about Lieutenant Colonel Churchill,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: and we're gonna learn a little bit about why people
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: called him mad Jack. And spoiler, this is not uh
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: an ironic nickname like little John or something. No, I mean,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: this really does have little hints of like the Inglorious
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Bastards uh in it. For sure. You mentioned in Tarantino connection.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: It's because this was a man whose job it was
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  Speaker 1: to hunt down and kill Nazis, and he did it
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  Speaker 1: in a pretty creative way, as some of the bastards
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  Speaker 1: did in that uh in that Tarantino picture. Let's let's
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: i've into Churchill's life. We know he was born in
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: nineteen o six. His father was in the Colonial service.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: He had engineering post and he worked in admin and
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: this meant that the family moved around. They had been
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: in Sri Lanka or President day Sri Lanka, they had
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: been in Hong Kong, and when Jack was born, the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: family was located in England. But there's still a little
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: bit of disagreement there. Some historians will stay he was
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: in the colony in Sri Lanka and some will say
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: he was in Hong Kong. Anyhow, his father's family came
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: from Oxfordshire and his name reflects their inherited geography, their
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: ancestry because they're on the Anglo Scottish border in the Highlands.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: So he actually had his His full birth name is
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: much longer than just John Churchill. Oh, absolutely, Mr Boland
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: a long name. Indeed, he was christened John on Malcolm
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Thorpe Fleming Churchill. See I miss those days. You know
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: how many people get five names from the jump. I mean,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: it's certainly on the table, you know, it's just not
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: really done, but I think we should bring that back.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: It has an air of gravitas to it, sort of
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: setting up your child for success as some sort of
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  Speaker 1: dictator or at the very least a minor political player.
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  Speaker 1: It also it gives you a moment to pause, you know,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: when your name is officially announced. Now it's this parade
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: of ideas if you Most people in the States have
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: what I would say, on average, three names, first, middle,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and last. All I'm saying is it's a it's good
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to have options. Oh yeah, that you know, think about
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: that too. Like we've all had friends, I imagine, who
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: later in life choose one of their names to be
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: their go to name. Like you might have a guy
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: whose name is Fergus Jeremy vander Schmidt, and growing up
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: he doesn't want to be called Fergus, so he's Jeremy
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: in school. But then he gets into like his college age,
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  Speaker 1: and he's like in to beat poetry and stuff, and
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: he's like, now I'm Fergus or Fergie perhaps and joins
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  Speaker 1: the black eyed piece. But see, here's the thing, though,
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  Speaker 1: where does Jack come in. We've got John Malcolm Thorpe,
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  Speaker 1: Fleming Churchill and then he ends up with Jack. Was
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Jack short for uh? Jack must be short for John?
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  Speaker 1: That makes no sense, the same number of syllables, I
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: don't under It's like Dick and Richard. Where did that
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  Speaker 1: come from? No idea? You know, because rich was right there,
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  Speaker 1: Riches in the front. Somebody went out of their way
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to call their child at Dick. I would agree with that. Uh,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you know that the child probably had a bad attitude. Um.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: You know. But here's the thing. Jack's father had a
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: had a very pithy, a little simple to the point name.
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  Speaker 1: It was Alec. And when Jack was for Alec became
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  Speaker 1: the director of public works in Hong Kong um and uh,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: they moved. He moved his family to Asia and they
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: lived there for several years until nineteen seventeen. UM. And
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: that is when young Jack became fascinated by exploration. He
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: was kind of given free reign to just roam the
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: city at will um. And when he finally went back
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  Speaker 1: to England, he wanted to keep that going. You know,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: he he had already he had this thirst for exploration
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: that he um could not easily quench. Yeah, and we
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: don't know too much about the life and adventures of
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  Speaker 1: young mad Jack Churchill. But we know a few things.
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  Speaker 1: He graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in nine
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  Speaker 1: six and after that, when he was only twenty years old,
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  Speaker 1: he was shipped off to Burma with the Manchester Regiment,
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  Speaker 1: and he also took some time to do some road trips.
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  Speaker 1: He drove his motorcycle around the region. Uh. And while
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: he was there, we know that he learned to play
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: the bagpipes, perhaps got a little bit obsessed with them.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's really no way to just be casually
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  Speaker 1: interested in the bagpipes. Ben, That's at least how I
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  Speaker 1: feel about it. You know, once you go, once you
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: get in with the bagpipes, you really got to become
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  Speaker 1: a total pipehead. Baghead maybe baghead just because uh, piper
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't work and pipe head has some sort of drug connotation.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I think you're probably right. What's the name of the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the thing that you blow into the the tamo, the shant,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the shanter, the tamos. I don't know, is that a hat?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: That's the hat? These sound? These sound legit. I know
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  Speaker 1: you don't blow into the bag. The bag just takes
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: them the air. I do also know that bagpipes can
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: sound good, but uh, only in the hands of a professional.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: That's my point. It's sort of like playing the harp
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  Speaker 1: or something. You can't be a casual harpist or the
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: oboe is really difficult. It's also you gotta have your
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: own masure, which is the way you hold your mouth
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: to to make the blows. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: been in the Even the violin can sound ugly in
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  Speaker 1: the hands of a novice. Trust me, dude, I mean
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: as a as a as a young violinist myself, I
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: have been around many Uh we did group lessons for violin,
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  Speaker 1: like that's with all the little kids up to the
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  Speaker 1: older kids, the little kids who that was hard? Is
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: it like t ball versus Little League? Did the little
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: kids have special violins? You know? It's funny the very
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: little kids, before they even get a violin, they get
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: a little box with a ruler taped to it and
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  Speaker 1: like a stick and they just learned how to like
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  Speaker 1: bow and like, you know, do the positions and all
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  Speaker 1: that stuff. Do you still have yours? I don't know
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  Speaker 1: my stick box now. I do have my violin in
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  Speaker 1: a closet. It's covered in duct tape because I was
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: in like sort of a punky piraty band for a while,
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  Speaker 1: and I had a pickup that I just kind of
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  Speaker 1: taped onto it in the very d I y Tom
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Morello e kind of way um, But anyway, um the
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  Speaker 1: bagpipes it really called to young Jack. And during his
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: motorcycle exploration days he also got into our tree. Um.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: And in the thirties he spent some time in Kenya
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: and Nairobi and Kenya. He was a newspaper editor, he
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: was a male model. UM. He again used his archery
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  Speaker 1: skills to get spots in films like The Thief of Baghdad,
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  Speaker 1: which is quite famous, and a Yank at Oxford where
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  Speaker 1: he served as an extra right. And there's a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of context we have to paint here because Churchill
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  Speaker 1: ended up in Kenya in nine six because he left
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  Speaker 1: the army, and he left the army because he was bored.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Historians speculate at the lack of conflict there was two
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: peaceful in the army, for he was living a lot
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  Speaker 1: of these stories that people would dream about living or
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: or he was he was actually doing things that people
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  Speaker 1: would write about and fantasize about. In the lack of
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  Speaker 1: military conflict, he became obsessed with his two great loves.
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  Speaker 1: He instead of spending his time killing people for the
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  Speaker 1: British Empire, he spent his time practicing the bagpipes and
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  Speaker 1: getting better and better at archery. In fact, he became
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  Speaker 1: an award winning bagpipeist and an award winning archer. That's right.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty eight there was a military bagpipe competition.
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  Speaker 1: Because let's not forget we we kind of buried this
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  Speaker 1: a little bit. Uh. The bagpipes were to the Scottish
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  Speaker 1: sort of the way like marching drums and beauty life
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  Speaker 1: and the fife or whatever. It's like what you would
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  Speaker 1: lead the charge with, you know, because you can hear
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  Speaker 1: it for miles and it's a very specific sound. And
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  Speaker 1: like you said, Benn, it really is. When done correctly,
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  Speaker 1: like our boy Jonathan Davis from the band corn Um
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  Speaker 1: so skillfully does, it can be a very interesting sound. Actually,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: my one of my favorite eighties musical breaks is in
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: the song Under the Milky Way by the Church and
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  Speaker 1: it's it's got a bagpipe solo, and I think it's
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  Speaker 1: really cool. They pull it off, they pull it off,
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  Speaker 1: and and I think you're being very generous and diplomatic
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  Speaker 1: by saying it is an interesting sound, because some people
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  Speaker 1: might get mad at me here, folks, but I will
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  Speaker 1: advance to you that a good At least one out
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  Speaker 1: of five times you hear bagpipes in the wild, they're
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  Speaker 1: not gonna sound great. You're probably right, ben, I do
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  Speaker 1: love the name of the place where this, uh, this
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  Speaker 1: military piping competition took place in nineteen thirty eight. It
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  Speaker 1: was called alder Shot tattoo Um and it actually set
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  Speaker 1: off a bit of a scandal um because he was,
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  Speaker 1: in fact an Englishman and he was better at the
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  Speaker 1: bagpipes than many of the Scotsman that were in the competition.
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  Speaker 1: He was a real upset, yeah, he was. He was
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  Speaker 1: a surprise second place winner, a bit of a dark
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  Speaker 1: horse candidate. And then the next year, nineteen thirty nine,
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  Speaker 1: he entered an archery competition, the World Archery Championship in Oslo, Norway,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: and he also got second place there. Keep in mind,
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  Speaker 1: he's still he's still a young guy when this is
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  Speaker 1: all happening. He's in his twenties. He seems set to
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  Speaker 1: live this life of a Roman adventurer until nine, the
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: dawn of World War Two. Indeed, the infamous invasion of
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Poland by the German forces um, at which point he
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  Speaker 1: was forced to go back to his post uh in
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  Speaker 1: the British Army and become a part of the war effort,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: where he joined the British Expeditionary Force to France. And
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  Speaker 1: he I don't know how this worked, like because you
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: would think, you know, the military super regimented, and they
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, there's everything's issued and the everything
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  Speaker 1: from the uniform to the weapons, and but they let
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  Speaker 1: him use his archery skills on patrol, which I think
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  Speaker 1: is really fascinating. He must have really showed them what
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  Speaker 1: he could do and convey to them that hey, this
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: is my weapon of choice and it can be a
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  Speaker 1: very deadly one. Yeah, and that's correct, and you're not
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: mishearing us. He was literally using a bow in war.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: As odd as that might sound, the bow actually held
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: up pretty well against the contemporaneous firearms at the time.
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  Speaker 1: Let's remember a bow and arrow is absolutely silent, and
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: there's an article in history dash uk dot com that
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: cites the stat that it is highly accurate as well
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: up to two hundred yards, so it's essentially like you know,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: a silent sniper rifle and Vice dot com has this
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: great article about mad Jack that describes some of his
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: guerrilla tactics. So, right after the Allied retreat to Dunkirk
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: in mid mad Jack starts practicing his shooting, move, stick
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and move guerrilla tactics he has. He stages raids, he
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: gets awards for his bravery, he gets clipped by machine
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  Speaker 1: gun fire and survives, and this is okay, I mean, Casey,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: maybe you can help us out with some Tarantino esque
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: sound cues that will pop up here whenever we say
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: there's a Tarantino moment, here's a Tarantino moment. One time
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  Speaker 1: mad Jack is watching German forces moved from a tower
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: in a tiny village Lepinette, and mad Jack when he
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: when he sees the group moving, he takes his longbow
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: and he pulls it back and then plump, he shoots
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: a Nazi sergeant straight through the chest with a barbed arrow.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: And then after that arrow, right after that arrow, his
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: infantrymen who are hanging with him just mow the place
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  Speaker 1: down with bullets light them up. And I guess a
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: barbed arrow would make it impossible to pull it out
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: without just absolutely doing irreparable damage to your gun parts.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: YEA not a nice way to go. I mean, think
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: about how painful that would be. Uh. He then was
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: able to rejoin his company and lead them across enemy
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: lines under cover of night. Um, even though he was
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: nursing that that shoulder shot. Yeah. Yeah, And this is
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the thing. Earlier I said he had been clipped with
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: machine gun fire. But there's something you have to understand
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: in anybody who is unfortunate enough to have been shot
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and survived, who's listening in the audience today, you know
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: exactly what I mean when I say that the movies
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: are lying to you. Everyone, every single person alive, is
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: genuinely startled by even a flesh wound from a quote
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: unquote flesh wound from a machine gun or a firearm.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: It hurts, it's dangerous. Uh. And the weird thing is sometimes,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: and I think this explains Matt Jack, sometimes, when people
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: are shot, the adrenaline that they're experiencing that's flooding their
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: body keeps them from noticing the pain until much later.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: So he might have not even noticed he had been
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: shot until much later. But Uh, this famous longbow incident
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: makes him the only British soldier to have felled an
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: enemy with a longbow during World War Two. That for
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: most people, that's enough. Now you're in the history books
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: right now, you can retire, go back to being a
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: male model, play bagpipes in uh An Orientalist films top
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: of your your motorcycle, you know, I mean, really really
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: interesting guy for sure. So advancing a little bit of
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the timeline when Churchill Um actually put himself forth as
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: a volunteer for this new elite squad of British commandos,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: um he actually helped launch a raid, very successful raid
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: on um a Nazi garrison uh and and some of
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: their supply stores, and they had a fish oil factories
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: as well at Vagsy in Vay. I imagine that this
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: is one of these little um what do you call
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: little accents that I'm unfamiliar with in in the Norwegian
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: language of the tiny tiny oh. And then also the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: O with an X through it, which I love, So
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I don't quite know how those how those add to
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the pronunciation. So we we always try to do our best, um.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: And this was an island, right, so this Nazi garrison
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: was on the island of Vagsy in Norway, and uh
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: so his commando group, British number three battalion landed on
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: December in nineteen one, and it was to the sound
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: of those those iconic bagpipes. Yes, it's the drone that
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: really sets them apart. Let's let's just break down really
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: quick the components of a bagpipe. You've got the bag
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: that you have to keep pumping because as you're pumping it,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: that's what's uh, you know, circular lating air to create
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: that drone, and then you are blowing into it in
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: between playing on the flutie part, which I think is
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: called the it's called the blowstick. Is it really called
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the blow really called the blowstick? What's the other part?
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I swears? So that's the part that uh there. But
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: then there's the again, the flutie bit that makes sort
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: of the melody, while the drone is created by inflating
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: and deflating the giant bag um. So you have that
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: combination of almost just that drone of doom, you know
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: on the low end that just keeps going. It's just endless,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: and then you have that kind of creepy melody up top. Correction,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the blowstick is its own thing. The chanter is separate, right.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: The chanter, I believe is the flutie part. The chanter
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: is the flutie part that that produces the melody notes,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: and they're also there's also the tuning slide. Not to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: be confused. The blow stick, I believe is what you
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: have to continuously, you know, switch over to you and
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: inflate to get the bag before. So he's doing this
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: in the middle of a war. Important part. It is
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: very important part bagpipe mechanics aside um. So you know,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: the Nazis heard that, and as far as they are concerned,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: that's the sound of their own demise, the sound of doom. Right. Uh,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the Casey, if we can, let's let's play a clip
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: if we can, of the song that mad Jack played.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: It's it's called the March of the Cameron Men. So
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: so Casey off, Mike, you said something interesting about that
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: while we were playing it. What's your take, Well, I
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: just said, it sounds like every other bagpipe composition I've
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: ever heard in my life. And I said, because of
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: that drone, right, Because it's it's it's the the elements
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: are just really there's really no way around it and
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: hard to escape it. And I feel like I should
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: just be watching like a parade in a movie where
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: something's going on, people are glaring at each other. Maybe
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: that's right, And then Mel Gibson is in the background
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: going freedom exactly, So something like that does kind of happen.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: This is another Tarantino moment, if we, if we ever
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: managed to get that sound cute. As he hits the shore,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: he stops playing the bagpipes he throws. He throws them somewhere,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: probably touched him behind his back, I don't know, and
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: he jumps out of the boat. He lobs a grenade
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: at the German forces. He draws his freaking broadsword, screams,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: and then runs into the battle. Yeah. Ironically this was
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: known as Operation Archery. He didn't seem to employ his
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: his ninja silent bow skills in this one. You want
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: to go straight into the fray, And I mean it
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: really was kind of almost like a Kama Kaze mission.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: You know, he was just blasting his way into the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you know, the fray without any sense of self preservation
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: at all. It's really in the screaming, you know, I mean,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: good lord. The image here is very, very visceral, and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: we're not exaggerating because it turns out there's actually some
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: film footage that you can find of the raid and
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: then of Jack himself playing his bagpipes on deck after
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: the whole she bank. It's a very fact. Let's let's
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: just play. I know we're clip heavy this episode. What
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: do you guys want to hear this? I'm loving it? Yeah,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: as all I look back to sew. The tell tale
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: fires plays a victory message that never can be told
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: or written, victory with a capital B, and one that
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: will be recorded in tulibly and all history. The intrepid
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: bagpiper who led the commandos in battle, now leads them
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: in a dance of joy. It's a well earned a version.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: They seek a deck of cads in a friendly game. Alright, okay,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: so here's what's going on this. This is an old
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: propaganda video. It's it's definitely worth your time to watch.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: You some of you perfect strangers fans in the audience
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: may have caught the phrase dance of joy. You can
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: see the soldiers there, I would say, for for the era,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: what they're doing is you know, you could call that
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: getting down. They're getting down. Yeah. What they're actually doing
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: is dancing a Highland fling, which is a very popular
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: dance um in Scottish culture. You know, your lock elbows,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: you go around in a circle, a lot of fancy footwork,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: famously portrayed in the Highlander films. Yes I'm kidding, not really,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: but in the franchise. I think it's it's a subtext.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: It may well be. Yeah, there can only be one
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Highland fling. We also know that this crazy, semi suicidal
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: action earned Churchill the Military Cross. He did have another
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: close call and another semi serious injury during this time,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: but it was at the it was at the party
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: after the battle. It's funny. There's a and then the
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Vice article that we've been we've been citing. Um, they
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: put the word demolition expert in quotes because apparently a
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: during this party, Um, when uh, when Jack was drinking
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: a bottle of wine, this demolition quotation fingers expert accidentally
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: set off a charge. I wonder if he was drunkenly
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: showing off or something, bragging, bragging about his his expertise.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: And yeah, that bottle of wine got got exploded and
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: shards of it were lodged in his forehead. But I mean,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: as we know, it's it's gonna take a lot more
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: than a few wine shards in the skull to uh
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to to get old Jack down. So he was back
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: to piping and slicing and you know, archering. Um. Very
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: quickly by he was in Italy for another campaign. Arching archering.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: They're both sounds fun. Yeah, I don't know, bowe bowman.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: You know he could be I don't know. I think
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I think it would be arch archering. Yeah, arch, that
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter an archers, right, I don't know. Man. We
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: gotta to look this up. In that, let's move forward.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: We'll just make up a fun make up a fun
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: phrase describing that, and and give us your pitch. So, yes,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: you're correct. In nineteen forty three, he is back on
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the road seeking blood and treasure in the Great War.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: He has a reputation for being crazy at this point.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: There's no other way to say it. He is incredibly
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: bellicose and aggressive. He is known for going on unofficial
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: raids and counterattacks. I think something just got his dander
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: up or his blood up, and he would he would
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: literally go through his crew or the people who are
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: around him. He would say things like you know you
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: you and you come with me. So we would pick
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: a few soldiers that he thought had grit uh and
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: a willingness to die. And these practices continue even when
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: he becomes a commanding officer leading commandos. And this is
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: where we get the iconic image of mad Jack. He's
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: got his broadsword around his waist, he's got his longbow,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: and he's got arrows. He's carrying the bagpipe still, and
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: people who serve with him start to see him as
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: an icon. You know, he is like a superhero to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: that word gets around when you charge screaming into battle
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: brandishing a broadsword when that is very much the nachronistic
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: weapon in those times, and like he's, oh yeah, he's
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the he's the crazy nut that that shoots Nazis with arrows,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, like really, his reputation absolutely preceded him.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: So let's pause there. Let's make this, as a matter
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: of fact, part one of the story of mad Jack.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I like the idea of holding him for a moment
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: beyond time, just this image of a real life superhero,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: a source of inspiration, uh, something that that rallied people.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Just seeing this guy on the battlefield probably kept some
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: people going, you know, oh absolutely, I mean, you know,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: he he didn't. It wasn't the kind of madness that
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: you know, caused people to not want to be around him.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: It was the kind of madness that would rally other
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: people around his absolute courage and bravado and just he
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: was a real character, as we were going to hear
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: much more about in part two. Well, Germans didn't want
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: to be around him. No, Germans didn't want to be
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: around him, but he wanted to be around them, and
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: he wanted to give him a good slice, which they
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: clearly had come in. So what exactly happened to mad Jack?
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: What did he tell his followers to scream on the battlefield?
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: And what are the other Tarantino moments of his strange,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: bloody career. There's going to be quite a few, my friends,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: and you'll find out when you tune in for our
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: next episode. In the meantime, Huge thanks super producer Casey Pegram,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams who composed our theme, research associate Gabe Loser
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: for hipping us to this incredible story of blood, treasure
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: and bravado. Big big thanks of course due Christopher Hasiotis
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: to Eve's Jeff Coach. Huge thanks as always, too Young
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Quizzles a k a. The Quizzerino a k. The Quizmeister,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: also known in some circles as Jonathan Stricklett. I hear
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: he's buying a franchise of quizz Nos sub shops. Finally good.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: You know what I like about them is they they
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: heat the sandwich as like the de Factos starting point.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: It's toasted. There's no option. You can't get an untoasted
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: sandwich a quiz Nos. They'd ask you to leave. Yeah, well,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: you know they should, They really should. It's barbaric. Well, Jonathan,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: if you're listening, don't screw that up for me. Seriously.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time foix. For more podcasts from
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.