Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
In his memoirs, he wrote: “Frankly, I had enjoyed the war.”
Who is the most fierce warrior in history?
Well, we can’t say for sure, but a very respectable guess would be Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart.
Reason? He survived six wars, five plane crashes, was tunneled out of a POW camp — and died peacefully at the age of 83.
Irish and Belgian descent
Carton de Wiart was born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1880, the son of an Irish mother and a Belgian father.
His father wanted him to go into law, as he was himself a successful lawyer, and so Carton de Wiart was sent to boarding school in Oxford, England.
He did not attend classes much, though, as he spent his time planning his first war, and at the age of 20, he enlisted in the British Army, falsifying his name and age and claiming to be 25 years old.
He was then sent to fight in the Second Boer War in South Africa.
The first injuries
Early in the war, Carton de Wiart was wounded in the stomach and groin and sent home.
His father was furious upon finding out that his son had gone off to fight in a war instead of attending school, but for some reason, Carton de Wiart was allowed to stay in the British Army.
After his injuries in the Boer War, Carton de Wiart developed an interest in physical fitness, running, jogging, and playing sports on a regular basis.
In 1902, he was transferred to India, but two years later, in 1904, his regiment was transferred to South Africa.
Even though he had been fighting for the British and had been part of the British Army for years, Carton de Wiart was still a Belgian national.
That all changed in 1907, when he took the oath of allegiance to the British king and became a British national.
WW1
When the First World War broke out, Carton de Wiart was en route to British Somaliland because a low-level war against the “Mad Mullah” (Mohammed bin Abdullah) was underway.
Carton de Wiart fought in Somaliland and was shot twice in the face, losing his left eye and a portion of his ear.
The Western Front
In February 1915, Carton de Wiart headed to France, where he successfully commandeered three infantry battalions and a brigade on the Western Front.
During his fighting on the Western Front, Carton de Wiart was wounded a total of seven times, the most notable being the loss of his left hand.
He is said to have pulled off his two remaining fingers himself when a doctor declined to remove them.
The Polish Mission
After WW1, Carton de Wiart was sent to command the British-Polish Military Mission in Poland.
The newly independent Poland desperately needed assistance, as it was fighting Soviet Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Czechoslovakia at the time — effectively fighting four wars at once.
The first plane crashes
During his time in Poland, Carton de Wiart primarily traveled by plane.
After crashing twice, however, he switched to traveling by train.
In 1920, while on an observation train, he was attacked by a group of Red cavalry, fighting them off with his revolver from the footplate of the train.
He is said to have fallen onto the tracks and quickly reboarded at one point during the fight.
After helping Poland fight off its four adversaries, Carton de Wiart was awarded a mansion with a large estate as a thank-you by the Polish leadership.
WW2
When the Second World War broke out, Carton de Wiart was nearly 60 years old.
He moved back to the UK, and during the German invasion of Norway, he was on a plane in Norway that was shot down by a German fighter.
Once safely back in England, Carton de Wiart was reassigned to help Yugoslavia fight off the German invasion in 1941.
En route to Yugoslavia, his airplane suffered an engine failure, and Carton de Wiart survived his fourth plane crash.
Captured by Italy
After escaping the plane crash, Carton de Wiart was arrested by Italian forces and moved to a special prison for senior officer POWs.
Incredibly, Carton de Wiart managed to dig a tunnel over the course of seven months in captivity and escaped the prison.
He was recaptured, though, but was released in 1943.
The China mission
When he arrived back in England, Carton de Wiart was sent to China as a personal representative for then Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
His time in China was relatively uneventful, and in 1947, Carton de Wiart retired from the military — after surviving yet another plane crash.
“I had enjoyed the war”
Carton de Wiart died at the age of 83 on 5 June 1963.
In his memoirs, Happy Odyssey, Carton de Wiart wrote about WW1:
“Frankly, I had enjoyed the war.”
He has also been immortalized in song, in “The Unkillable Soldier” by the Swedish heavy metal band, Sabaton. The music video for the song is fairly graphic, so you can find a lyric video of the song below.
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If you prefer to watch the real music video, you can watch it on YouTube (opens new tab).
Sources: BBC News, Happy Oddysey by Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart, The First News, The RDG Museum
