the rest of his life. He was sent back to England to convalesce by the "infernal quacks"; it appeared that his war was over but Wintle had other ideas. He was soon planning his escape from the Southern General Hospital back to the front, attending a nurses-only dance in their billets (disguised as a nurse) before finally making his escape. He recorded that his monocle was a dead give-away and the particularly unpleasant matron was unimpressed with his antics. Wintle entrained for France with a warrant signed by a friend of his father's; he had a "moderately successful year of action" with the 119th Battery, 22nd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (RFA). His Military Cross was gazetted in the London Gazette of 2 April 1919, and the citation was published on 10 December. According to his obituary, he received his MC in the mail the same day it was announced in the London Gazette. The citation read: For marked gallantry and initiative on 4th Nov. 1918 near Jolimentz. He went forward with the infantry to obtain information and personally accounted for 35 prisoners. On 9th Nov. he took forward his section well in front of the infantry and throughout the day he showed initiative of a very high order and did excellent work. Wintle later recalled that he could not remember anything about either incident. He is said to have regarded the period between the First and Second World War as "intensely boring". World War II When World War II began in September 1939, Wintle tried everything to persuade his superiors to allow him to go to France. When they refused, he planned to resign his commission and form his own army "to take the war to the Hun". In his book Most Secret War, Reginald Victor Jones recalls encountering Wintle on matters of air intelligence. He was impressed by an army officer with enough technical knowledge to distinguish a spectroscope from a spectrograph, and who noted details in intelligence reports which might have indicated their authenticity (or otherwise). After chatting with Wintle on Horse Guards Parade one morning, he recorded that he was surprised to see a news headline a few days later: "Cavalry Officer in the Tower". After the French surrender, Wintle demanded an aircraft (with which he intended to rally the French Air Force to fly their planes to Britain and continue fighting Germany from British air bases);