Mike Calvert

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James Michael Calvert DSO and Bar (6 March 1913–1998) was a British soldier involved in special operations in World War II. The degree to which he led very risky attacks in person led to him becoming widely known as "Mad Mike".

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[edit] Early career

He was born at Rohtak in India, son of a member of the Indian Civil Service. He was educated at Bradfield and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.

He was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1933, and for a time was the Army's middleweight boxing champion. He read for the Mechanical Engineering Tripos at St. John's College, Cambridge. After graduating in 1936, he was appointed to the Hong Kong Royal Engineers. In this post, he learned Cantonese. He also witnessed the Japanese attack on Shanghai and the Rape of Nanking, which made him one of the few officers who truly appreciated the threat posed by the Japanese.

When the war broke out, he briefly commanded a detachment of Royal Engineers in the campaign in Norway, then trained Commando detachments in demolition techniques in Hong Kong and Australia. In Australia, along with F. Spencer Chapman, he assisted with training Australian commandos who formed the first Australian Army Independent Companies at Wilson's Promontory, Victoria in 1941. He was then appointed to command the Bush Warfare School in Burma, training officers and NCOs to lead guerilla bands in China for operations against the Japanese.

The Japanese invaded Burma in early 1942. Calvert and others from the school raided Henzada by riverboat after the fall of Rangoon as a deception operation to convince the Japanese that Australians reinforcements had reached Burma. Calvert then spent a period of time touring Burma with Orde Wingate. After the Bush Warfare School closed, Calvert was sent with 22 men from the school and a few hundred men separated from their units to guard the Gokteik Viaduct thirty miles east of Maymyo. (The Allied Commander in Chief, General Archibald Wavell, apparently hoped that Calvert would use his initiative and demolish it, in spite of orders from the civil government to keep it intact. For once, Calvert obeyed orders.)

After retreating from the Viaduct, Calvert participated in a deception operation involving the loss of a set of false papers to the Japanese. Calvert's unit finally retreated to India at the very rear of the army, often behind the Japanese lines.

[edit] Chindit Operations

In India, he reunited with the equally unorthodox Wingate, and the two became firm friends. Calvert led one of the company-sized columns in Operation Longcloth, Wingate's first Chindit operation in 1943. This was a long-range penetration operation behind enemy lines, which put great demands on the endurance of all who took part. Calvert was awarded the DSO for his achievements on the operation.

He commanded 77th Brigade in Operation Thursday, the much larger second Chindit operation. On March 5, 1944, his brigade spearheaded the airborne landings deep in the Japanese rear. They then captured and held a position codenamed White City which blocked Japanese road and rail communications to their northern front, for over two months.

Calvert led several counter-attacks against encircling Japanese forces in person. On March 17 he led a bayonet charge which degenerated into a free-for-all, which Calvert later described as "just like an officers' mess guest night". On April 13 he commanded a much larger attack involving most of the brigade. He learned that a friend (Major Ian MacPherson) had been killed and his body left in the Japanese positions, and his Brigade Major had to threaten him with a revolver to prevent him returning alone to retrieve it.

The Chindit brigades now moved north. In June 1944, his brigade was ordered by the American General Joseph Stilwell to capture the town of Mogaung. Although his men were greatly weakened by shortage of rations, exhaustion and disease, he succeeded in doing so against desperate Japanese defenders, by the end of the month. His brigade had suffered 800 battle casualties in the siege; half of its strength. Of the remainder, only 300 men were left fit to fight.

On receiving orders to move to Myitkyina, where another Japanese garrison was holding out, he closed down his Brigade's radio sets and marched to Stilwell's army's headquarters in Kamaing instead. A court martial was threatened, but after he and Stilwell finally met in person and Stilwell appreciated for the first time the conditions under which the Chindits had operated, 77th brigade was evacuated to India to recover. Calvert was awarded a bar to the DSO for the second Chindit expedition.

[edit] SAS Operations

Calvert was then evacuated to Britain on medical grounds (ironically following an accidental injury) in September 1944. In March 1945 he was appointed to command the Special Air Service Brigade and held this appointment until the Brigade disbanded in October 1945.

After the war, he attended the Army's Staff College. After passing the course, he was appointed to a staff post as Lieutenant Colonel in the Allied Military Government in Trieste. He was then selected in 1950 to command the Malayan Scouts engaged in operations against Communist insurgents in Malaya. Although he held the local rank of Brigadier, he nevertheless led several patrols and operations in person. However, the Malayan Scouts were not subject to proper selection procedures and never lost an early reputation for poor discipline. Calvert's exertions meant that he was invalided home in 1951.

[edit] Later career

Calvert reverted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and was posted to an obscure staff billet in the British Army of the Rhine. While there, he was accused of an act of indecency and court-martialled. Forced to leave the Army under a cloud, he became prone to alcoholism. He several times tried to rebuild a career as an engineer, in Australia and Britain.

Eventually, he was appointed Research Fellow at Manchester University in 1971 to write "The Pattern of Guerrilla Warfare", which was never finished. He died in 1998.

[edit] Published works

[edit] External links

[edit] Other Sources

  • Mad Mike: A life of Brigadier Michael Calvert, by David Rooney, Pen & Sword Books Ltd. 1997, ISBN 0-85052-543-8
  • Jon Latimer, Burma: The Forgotten War, London: John Murray, 2004 ISBN 0-7195-6576-6