Alfred Wintle: The Cavalry Officer Who Refused to Surrender

In June 1940, with France collapsing and London whispering about an armistice, a one-eyed cavalry colonel drew his service revolver inside an RAF aerodrome and demanded an aircraft to fly to France and rally what was left of the French Air Force. He failed. He was sent to the Tower of London — the last man ever imprisoned there for a military offence. And that was only the prologue. This is the story of Lt. Col. Alfred Daniel Wintle MC, born on a Baltic ferry in 1897, escaped a Vichy citadel in a stolen uniform and a freshly trimmed monocle, locked a corrupt solicitor in a cupboard, and argued his own case at the House of Lords with no legal training — and won. True stories of the men and women whose courage History almost forgot. — Chapters — 00:00 Cold open — Heston aerodrome, June 1940 00:55 Born on a Baltic ferry 02:30 The Great War, the monocle, the glass eye 04:25 Spring 1940 — the whispers in the War Office 06:30 The Tower of London 08:35 Parachuted into Vichy France 10:20 Walking out of the citadel at Auch 11:35 The locked cupboard and the House of Lords 13:25 Reflection — conduct as a moral act 14:20 Subscribe — Sources — • Wintle, Alfred D. The Last Englishman: An Autobiography of Lt. Col. Alfred Daniel Wintle, M.C., 1st Royal Dragoons. Michael Joseph, 1968. • Cooke, Alistair. Six Men. The Bodley Head, 1977. • The Times archive — letters to the editor from Lt Col A. D. Wintle, 1946-1966. • UK National Archives, court-martial papers for Lt Col A. D. Wintle, 1940. • British Pathé newsreel of the Nye v. Wintle hearing at the House of Lords, 1958. — About this channel — Spies, medics, resistance fighters, code-talkers — narrated from the diaries, letters, and declassified files they left behind. New stories every week. Subscribe and follow the untold front. #WW2 #untoldfront #ww2history #forgottenheroes #ww2stories #worldwar2