Dominic Bruce
Dominic Bruce, was a British Royal Air Force officer, known as the "Medium Sized Man." He has been described as "the most ingenious escaper" of the Second World War. He made seventeen attempts at escaping from POW camps, including several attempts to escape from Colditz Castle, a castle that housed prisoners of war "deemed incorrigible". He was named by Jim Rogers as one of the ten 'Kings of Colditz', the men who "dedicated their waking hours only to the idea of escaping".
Famed for his time in Colditz, Bruce also escaped from Spangenberg Castle and the Warburg POW camp. In Spangenberg Castle he escaped with the Swiss Red Cross Commission escape; it is also argued he co-innovated the wooden horse escape technique while serving time inside Spangenberg. In Warburg he escaped dressed as a British orderly in a fake workers party. Inside Colditz Castle, Bruce authored the Tea Chest Escape and also faced a firing squad for an attempted escape via a sewer tunnel. While held in solitude in Colditz Bruce, along with two other prisoners, became a key witness to the post war Musketoon commando raid trial.
He is notable for being one of the only two men who escaped from both Spangenberg and Colditz prison camps during World War II.
For his exploits, Bruce was awarded the Military Cross and is the only known person to have received both the Military Cross and the Air Force Medal. Bruce has also featured prominently in books, sound recordings, TV and film. In his later years he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services to education.
Early years
Bruce was born on 7 June 1915, in Hebburn, County Durham, England. He was the second of the four children of William and Mary Bruce. Mary Bruce was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1956 for her services to the care of the sick and infirm and was known as the 'Angel of Hebburn'.His elder brother was Brother Thomas Bruce, a member of the De La Salle religious congregation or Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools who died in Nazareth in 1974, and is buried in a wall tomb in the crypt of the University of Bethlehem. His two younger siblings were Anne Bruce-Kimber and John Bruce.
Dominic Bruce's escaping adventures started early in his life when he ran away from home by means of a train to London. Remarkably on arrival in London he was recognised by a police officer married to his father's sister Anne. He was quickly returned to Shakespeare Avenue in Hebburn. Bruce was educated at and matriculated from St Cuthbert's Grammar School, Newcastle, 1927–1935.
He was of an adventurous disposition and as an alternative to his formal education he spent some time as an unauthorised visitor to the Newcastle Law Courts during school time.
According to the Bruce family records, Bruce married Mary Brigid Lagan on 25 June 1938 at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, Maiden Lane.
Early RAF career
On joining the Royal Air Force in 1935 he trained as a wireless operator, then as an airgunner.As a gunner and wireless operator, Bruce, the recruit, trained in the Hawker Hind. An open two-seated plane that came with a Lewis gun. One superior—if you did not listen— would turn the plane upside down. With the feet secured to the security straps, he would wangle you side to side.
Jankers
The unranked Bruce served his jankers. In the 1930s, the NCOs gave them out like confetti. Casually, they accused Bruce and the lads of sloppiness. And they filled up Bruce's charge sheet. For the minor misdeeds they could not fit on to the charge sheet — his time in solitary as a POW, equalled it out.In November 1936, Bruce joined No. 214 Squadron at Scampton. Scampton was equipped with Virginias and Harrows.
Morton and the Scampton lads
Trainees and aviators at Scampton practised. Mischievous; they mastered scaring train drivers. By the summer of 1937, low-flying, without reason, resulted in instant dismissal.Spring time 1937, 25 March, the Handley Page Harrow "K6940" crash landed. Lower ranked Bruce and the five others were on board. The result of—an unfortunate descent. A descent not judged well by —the pilot, Flight Sergeant Morton. The plane landed 10km away from the Handley Page Radlett airfield. Morton's landing— removed the roof off a train.
Air Force Medal
On 6 October 1938, while with No. 214 Squadron, he survived the crash of Harrow "K6991" at Pontefract, Yorkshire. While acting as a wireless operator for his aircraft, he was knocked out by a lightning strike. Once recovered, he alerted his base to the fact that the crew were bailing out. Wishing to get out of an escape hatch, he found his way blocked by other airmen who were hesitating about throwing themselves out of the aircraft into the howling darkness. He rushed to the other side of the hatch and jumped. His parachute harness caught on projecting clamps and pulled the trapdoor shut above him. Bruce was now suspended under the bomber and unable to escape further. Realising what had happened, his fellow crew members were now galvanised into action, raised the trapdoor and were shocked to have Bruce shoot back into the aircraft, though not too shocked to eject him again. Bruce was subsequently awarded the Air Force Medal on 8 June 1939. According to Pete Tunstall, Bruce was very proud of being the only man known to have bailed from an aircraft three times and to have landed only twice. After the war he used to entertain his children with the seemingly insoluble riddle: "How is it that I baled out three times, but only landed twice?" Bruce called his AFM medal the 'Away From Mam' medal.In March 1939, Bruce retrained as an air observer. He studied at the Bombing School Stranraer. He was promoted to Sergeant. And following the RAF tradition, the NCO lads tore up his jankers charge sheet.
Second World War
On 1 September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. On 3 September, Britain and France declared war on Germany.Following his training, Bruce became an instructor at OTU Harwell.
In May 1940, he was posted to No. 9 Squadron which was equipped with Vickers Wellingtons. After 25 operations, Bruce became the squadron's Navigation and Bombing Leader, which was a staff appointment with restricted operational flying duties. By 1940, Bruce, had won an AFM, was part of the staff, was a qualified instructor, had experience as a wireless operator, air-gunner and navigator with No. 9 Squadron. As he relates in the IWM tapes, he was in combat during the Dunkirk retreat, attempting to bomb the advancing German forces so that more British and French troops could cross the Channel safely.
His account of a bombing raid, on military infrastructure in Leverkusen in 1940 can be read in 'Voices of Colditz.' The report describes the aircraft swinging around Cologne on a moonlight night, Bruce using the silver river Rhine as the navigational signpost; how the guns were firing more to make it look like a raid than to hit the aircraft; and how the run up in this raid was textbook. He finishes the report, mentioning the parking in the hangar; highlighting his workload filling up his bulky navigator's satchel and how he sadly climbed out of the plane on to nothing, resulting in him receiving a sprained ankle.
On 20 January 1941, Acting Flight Sergeant Bruce was granted a commission "for the duration of hostilities" as a probationary pilot officer, with seniority from 8 January. By June 1941 Bruce had been promoted to flying officer.
Camaraderie with messmates
Pranks
Bruce was a notorious prankster. In Pat Reid's book about Colditz, he describes how a group of new Navy entrants to the castle were horrified when a uniformed German doctor insisted that they were lice-ridden and must strip naked for their private parts to be treated by his medical orderly. This alarming figure in white overalls would approach each man with a lavatory brush dipped in a bucket of evil smelling blue liquid and dab each man's genitals. The new boys would later realise that the evilly grinning orderly was Bruce.In the IWM interview tapes held in the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, Bruce tells the tale of a bombing mission over Berlin when he persuaded the pilot to descend to five hundred feet over the city. Bruce climbed down into the now empty bomb bay, hand cranked the doors open; sat on the bomb rack and threw a lit distress flare out of the plane. When asked later why, he answered "Because I've always wanted to see the Unter den Linden lit up at night."
In the same IWM interview tapes, Bruce describes a prank he played on some German soldiers who were guarding a working party of British soldiers. During the aftermath of the 'Tea Chest' escape, Bruce was travelling through Germany on a stolen bicycle and, coming across the file of soldiers being marched down a street, decided to cheer them up. He cycled up to the head of the column shouting out words of encouragement, saying they were not to worry because we were winning the war. On hearing the unmistakable tones of a British officer, the surprised soldiers started to cheer. Before the shocked guards could overcome their confusion and unsling their rifles to take aim at him, Bruce had accelerated around a corner and disappeared.
Bruce, like a lot of his comrades, participated in goon baiting. Reinhold Eggers was the Colditz Castle's security officer succeeding Priem, and like Priem, was a schoolmaster by profession. In his book 'Colditz: the German Story', Eggers describes how Bruce was fond of sowing confusion amongst the German guards during Appel, or roll call, using the 'rabbit run' prank. Bruce would stand in the ranks, wait until he had been counted, then duck quickly along the line, only to be counted again at the other end. This trick was also used for more serious purposes, to cover up for a missing escapee.
As a POW, Bruce would go on to spend eight months inside solitary confinement, mainly as a result of his escaping activities. Eggers knowing Bruce was a regular in the solitary cells, would explain to Bruce, upon each arrival to the cells that as Bruce already knew the rules, he would not read out the rules... Bruce in turn would always try to bait Eggers after this response, by always reasserting with humour, 'that if he did not read him out the rules..., he would do something to break rule 1..., and then break rule 2...; and break rule 3,' and so on... Under the Geneva Convention prisoners in solitary confinement were given a welcomed, one hour's exercise time. Eggers also used the exercise time to exercise his pet dog with the prisoners; this was welcomed by Bruce. Eggers in turn was noted by some prisoners as very controlled and fair when compared to a few other guards in the chain of command who advocated for corpses in the yard. Bruce explained Eggers as 'a man who could not be bribed,' Bruce's comrade, Tunstall, in contrast, wrote that though Eggers was believed to be an anti-Nazi, he was a man whom he and others could not trust, a man who was prejudiced after reading the exaggerated crime sheets, concocted by Rademacher, that got rid of Bruce and him to Colditz. Eggers was thought of as very composed and a tough guard to goon bait.
John 'Bosun' Chrisp explained that after their sewer drain escape attempt, Bruce billed the Kommandant and Staff Paymaster Heinze in the castle for £600 on behalf of Chrisp, Lorraine and Bruce, for their service of cleaning the drains that had not been cleaned for 300 years.