Orde Wingate - Early Army Career

Early Army Career

After four years Wingate left Charterhouse and in 1921 he was accepted into the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, the Royal Artillery's officers' training school. For committing a minor offence against the rules, a first-year student would be subjected to a ragging ritual named "running". This ritual consisted of the first-year being stripped and forced to run a gauntlet of senior students, all of whom wielded a knotted towel, which they used to hit the accused on his journey along the line. On reaching the end, the first-year would then be thrown into an icy-cold cistern of water. When it came time for Wingate to run the gauntlet, for allegedly having returned a horse to the stables too late, he walked to the senior student at the head of the gauntlet, stared at him and dared him to strike. The senior refused. Wingate moved to the next senior and did the same; he too refused. In turn, each senior declined to strike; coming to the end of the line, Wingate walked to the cistern and dived straight into the icy-cold water.

In 1923 Wingate received his gunnery officer's commission and was posted to the 5th Medium Brigade at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain. During this period he was able to exercise his great interest in horse riding, gaining a reputation for his skill (and great success) in point-to-point races and during fox hunting, particularly for finding suitable places to cross rivers, which earned him the nickname "Otter". It was difficult in the 1920s for an army officer to live on his pay and Wingate, living life to the full, also gained a reputation as a late payer of his bills. In 1926, because of his prowess in riding, Wingate was posted to the Military School of Equitation where he excelled, much to the chagrin of the majority of the cavalry officers at the centre who found him insufferable; he frequently challenged the instructors as a demonstration of his rebellious nature.