Jack Churchill

John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill, (16 September 1906 – 8 March 1996) was a British Army officer. Nicknamed "Fighting Jack Churchill" and "Mad Jack", he fought in the Second World War with a broadsword, longbow, and a set of bagpipes.

Early life

Churchill was born in Colombo, British Ceylon, to Alec Fleming Churchill (1876–1961), later of Hove, East Sussex, and Elinor Elizabeth, daughter of John Alexander Bond Bell, of Kelnahard, County Cavan, Ireland, and of Dimbula, Ceylon. Alec, of a family long settled at Deddington, Oxfordshire, had been District Engineer in the Ceylon Civil Service, in which his father, John Fleming Churchill (1829–1894), had also served. Soon after Jack's birth, the family returned to Dormansland, Surrey, where his younger brother, Thomas Bell Lindsay Churchill (1907–1990), was born.

In 1910, the Churchills moved to British Hong Kong when Alec Churchill was appointed as Director of Public Works there; he also served as a member of the Executive Council. The Churchills' third and youngest son, Robert Alec Farquhar Churchill, later a lieutenant in the Royal Navy and Fleet Air Arm, was born in Hong Kong in 1911. The family returned to England in 1917.

Churchill was educated at King William's College on the Isle of Man. He graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1926 and served in Burma with the Manchester Regiment. He enjoyed riding a motorbike in Burma.

Churchill left the army in 1936 and worked as a newspaper editor in Nairobi, Kenya, and as a model. He took second place in the 1938 military piping competition at the Aldershot Tattoo. He used his archery talent to play a small role in the 1940 film The Thief of Bagdad. In 1939, he represented Great Britain at the World Archery Championships in Oslo, where he got 26th place.