Wintringham, Thomas Henry, 1898-1945, socialist writer and military commentator

Person

Wintringham, Thomas Henry, 1898-1945, socialist writer and military commentator

1898-1945

Born 15 May 1898 in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. Educated at Gresham's School, Holt, 1910-1916. Served in the World War One as a mechanic and motorcycle dispatch rider, Royal Flying Corps, Jun 1916-[Feb] 1919; Balliol College, Oxford, 1918-1920; visited Moscow, 1920; joined Communist Party Great Britain (CPGB), Feb 1923; assistant editor of Workers Weekly , 1923-1925. Married Elizabeth Emma Arkwright, 31 Aug 1923; imprisoned for sedition, Nov 1925-Apr 1926; editor of _Workers' Life, _May 1926-Jan 1930; editor of Daily Worker , Jan 1930-[1936]; founder editor of the Left Review , 1936; military correspondent of the Daily Worker , 1936. Joined the British Bn, International Bde, fighting with Republican forces, Spanish Civil War, Aug 1936-Aug 1937; machine-gun instructor for 11 Bn and 12 Bn, Nov 1936; commanded British Bn, 15 International Bde, 1937; wounded, Feb 1937; instructor at Officer's Training School, Albacete, Jun 1937; rejoined 15 Bde as a staff officer; wounded in Aragon, 25 Aug 1937; returned to England, Nov 1937. Expelled from the Communist Party, Jul 1938; divorced Elizabeth, Feb 1940; married Katherine 'Kitty' Wise Bowler, 25 Jan 1941; set up the Osterley Park Training School to provide instruction to the Home Guard, Jun 1940-[Jun] 1941; co-founder of the Common Wealth Party, July 1942; unsuccessfully ran in the 1943 by-election as Common Wealth Party candidate for North-Midlothian; unsuccessfully ran in the 1945 General Election as Common Wealth Party candidate for Aldershot. Died 16 Aug 1949.

Publications:

• The Coming World War (Wishart Books, London, 1935), revised edition (Lawrence and Wishart, 1936).
• Mutiny. Being a survey of mutinies from Spartacus to Invergordon (Stanley Nott, London, 1936).
• How to Reform the Army (Fact, London, 1939).
• English Captain. Reminiscences of service in the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (Faber & Faber, London, 1939), second edition (Penguin, 1941).
• Armies of Freemen (G Routledge & Sons, London, 1940).
• New Ways of War (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth and New York, 1940).
• Deadlock war (Faber & Faber, London, 1940).
• Blitzkrieg by Ferdinand Otto Miksche, translated and with introduction by Tom Wintringham (Faber & Faber, London, 1941).
• The Politics of Victory (G Routledge & Sons, London, 1941).
• Freedom is our weapon. A policy for army reform (Kegan Paul & Co, London, 1941).
• Guerrilla Warfare by Albert Yank Levy, ghosted and with an introduction by Tom Wintringham (Penguin, 1941).
• Peoples' War (Penguin, Harmondsworth and New York, 1942).
• Weapons and Tactics (Faber & Faber, London, 1943), reprinted with Col John Nicholas Blashford-Snell, (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973).
• We're going on!: the collected poems of Tom Wintringham, edited by Hugh Purcell (Smokestack, Middlesbrough, 2006).

0099 KCLMA

Final

Partial

Further information is available at the National Archives (F32056)