Like his equally famous kinsman Lawrence of Arabia, Orde Wingate was one of that select handful of military prodigies who are said to have influenced the development of modern warfare. His Chindit campaigns in Burma helped to lay the foundations of victory in the Far East. Churchill called him a man of genius who might have become also a man of destiny. But Wingate died in an aircraft crash in 1944 and the official war historians blackened his reputation by denigrating the acheivments of the Chindits. This biography is based on previously unseen sources including those of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) which Wingate joined in 1940. It traces Wingate's development as a soldier and guerilla leader in Palestine and Ethiopia and shows how his strict religious upbringing had a lasting effect on his military career.