The Indestructible Soldier

Incredibly, the most glamourous thing about Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart, 1880 - 1963, wasn’t his name. He was born in Belgium to aristocratic parents, but it was widely thought he was the illegitimate son of King Leopold II of the Belgians. He became a British Army officer and fought with distinction in the Boer War and in the First and Second World Wars, as well. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip and ear, was blinded in his left eye, survived two plane crashes, tunneled out of a prisoner-of-war camp and tore off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly, I had enjoyed the war”. Of him, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography said, "With his black eyepatch and empty sleeve, Carton de Wiart looked like an elegant pirate and became a figure of legend”. He was glamourous for other reasons as well.