Lieutenant Colonel John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming “Jack” Churchill, DSO & Bar, MC & Bar (16 September 1906 – 8 March 1996), nicknamed “Fighting Jack Churchill” and “Mad Jack”, was a British soldier who fought throughout World War II armed with a longbow, arrows and a claymore. He once said “any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed.”
He can be seen at the right edge of the photo, leading a charge with sword in hand.
In May 1940, Churchill and his unit, the Manchester Regiment, ambushed a German patrol near L’Epinette, France. Churchill gave the signal to attack by cutting down the enemy Feldwebel (sergeant) with his barbed arrows, becoming the only known British soldier to have felled an enemy with a longbow in the course of the war.
