NEW COMMANDER FOR CHINDITS

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24237, 20 April 1944, Page 5

NEW COMMANDER FOR CHINDITS

GENERAL LENTAIGNE APPOINTED (8.0. W.) RUGBY. April 18. The successor to the late MajorGeneral Charles Wingate as commander of the Allied jungle forces in Burma has been announced. He is 44-years-old Major-General W. D. A. Lentaigne; D.5.0., an Indian Army officer, of the 4th Gurkha Rifles, ■ Major-General Lentaigne has a great knowledge of the Japanese and Burma. He commanded a battalion during the 1942 campaign and a brigade on the Assam border. He was commanding one of Major-General Wingate’s airborne brigades when Major-General Wingate was killed. As soon as MajorGeneral Wingate’s death was confirmed, Lord Louis Mountbatten placed Major-General Lentaigne in command of Major-General Wingate’s forces. He had been in close touch with MajorGeneral Wingate’s plans and ideas. The Japanese invasion of Burma in the winter of 1941-42 provided typical examples of his personal courage. He commanded the 4th Gurkha Rifles at the time. On one occasion he was walking down a jungle track when he was attacked by four Japanese, who 'jumped out on him. His revolver was knocked out of his hand, but he grappled with the leading Japanese and tore the sword out of his hand and then slew him with his own sWdrd. He then turned on the others, hewed one to the ground, and chased the others back into the jungle. . On another occasion a convoy of ambulances, carrying wounded, was captured by a Japanese force which had infiltrated in depth. While the drivers and the wounded were wondering what their fate was to be. a British officer dashed up “roaring like the Bull of Bashan" and attacked the Japanese. It was Joe Lentaigne. He had been moving through the jungle with his Gurkhas when he heard the din of the Japanese capture and he had outdistanced his men in his eagerness to attack the Japanese. The number he killed before the Gurkhas routed the Japanese varies in different accounts, some saying four while others claimed that he accounted for eight. All the ambulances were saved.