Flight Lieutenant Robert Bruce, right, formed a formidable night fighter crew with his Canadian pilot, Russ Bannock
Wartime Mosquito navigator who, with his Canadian pilot Russ Bannock, destroyed nine enemy aircraft and 19 V1 flying bombs
Flying as a navigator in Mosquitoes to the Canadian pilot Russ Bannock in No 418 Squadron RCAF, Robert Bruce was one half of one of the most formidable duos in intruder operations in the latter part of the Second World War. He and Bannock were “aces” (five combat victories) in two categories. As well as destroying nine aircraft together on intruder operations over enemy airfields, they also became “Diver” aces, accounting for 19 V1 flying bombs.
The pulse jet-engined V1 was difficult to intercept by the pistonengined RAF fighters available at the time, owing to its high low-altitude speed, in the region of 400mph. So Bannock and Bruce used their intruder experience to attack the flying bombs shortly after the point of launch from their “Ski” sites — as their inclined launch ramps were known — in the Pas de Calais before they had attained cruising height, 3,000 ft and their maximum velocity. For their successes against the V1s in July and August 1944, both men were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (in Bannock’s case a Bar to an already earned DFC).
Robert Richard Fernie Bruce was born in 1915 at Inverkeilor, Angus, and educated at Rugby and Edinburgh University where he read music. A gifted pianist and cellist, after graduation he studied the latter in Switzerland and then composition in Amsterdam. At the outbreak of war in September 1939 he was registered as a conscientious objector and served with the Friends Ambulance Service during the London Blitz. Subsequently he worked at a hospital in Gloucester before changing his mind about his pacifism and volunteering for aircrew training in the RAF.
Although accepted in February 1942 it was not for another 12 months that he actually began training, going overseas to Canada where he entered the Navigation School at Mount Hope, Ontario, in March 1943. From there he was posted to Greenwood, Nova Scotia, where he met the already highly decorated Canadian, Squadron Leader Russ Bannock, who was instructing there.
Anticipating a return to operations, Bannock accepted him as his navigator, and in due course both officers were posted to the UK where, after joining a Mosquito Operational Training Unit, in June 1944 they joined 418 Squadron RCAF, based at Middle Wallop. No 418 was a night intruder squadron whose tactics were to attack German night fighters as they returned to base at the end of their sorties against Bomber Command’s night raids. Their first combat victory was over an Messerschmitt 110 as it returned to its airfield at Bourges-Avord on the night of June 13-14.
In the meantime the V1 offensive had begun, and the the squadron’s efforts were redeployed to deal with this new form of air attack. Bannock and Bruce’s tactics of taking the fight to the V1’s launching point proved highly effective. Although it was hazardous approaching too close to the launch sites which were heavily defended by flak, the tactic of attacking them as soon as possible after launch, before they had gained full flying speed, was highly effective and they took a heavy toll of these precursors of the modern cruise missile. On their first sortie, on July 3, they shot down three V1s near Abbeville, and a few nights later accounted for four more. By mid-August they had accounted for 19 of the buzz bombs.
They then reverted to attacks on German fighters, carrying out “Ranger” attacks by day as well as night intruder sorties, sometimes flying as far afield as the Baltic to attack Luftwaffe fighters operating from bases in Denmark. Bruce remained as Bannock’s navigator when the latter was appointed to command the squadron in October 1944. On one occasion they were lucky to escape when a Messerschmitt 109 jumped them and fired a burst into one of their engines, putting it out of action. But they managed to make it home after a 600-mile flight on one engine.
When in November Bannock was transferred as its commanding officer to 406 Squadron RCAF, he took Bruce with him, and the pair were soon adding to their score. Bruce was awarded a Bar to his DFC in February. At the end of the war he went as navigation officer to 29 Squadron, a night/all-weather fighter unit operating Mosquitoes.
After demob from the RAF in 1946 he was for a time a schoolmaster before becoming a lecturer in music at University College Cardiff. He had continued to compose and his Symphony in B Flat was completed in 1957, receiving performances from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Czestochowa Philharmonic Orchestra, who recorded it in Poland in 1999. Bruce continued to live in South Wales after his retirement in 1977.
His wife Beatrice, a nursing sister whom he had married in 1941 while working in Gloucester, died in 2010. He is survived by a son and a daughter. Another son predeceased him.
Flight Lieutenant Robert Bruce, DFC and Bar, wartime Mosquito navigator, was born on August 17, 1915. He died on August 13, 2012, aged 96
Soldier whose Polish company put up a fierce resistance against German marines in the first engagement of the Second World War
As the last surviving Polish soldier from the first battle of the Second World War, Major Ignacy Skowron came to symbolise his country’s determination to resist the German invasion. Serving with the 4th Infantry Regiment as a corporal, the 23-year-old Skowron was posted along with 200 other troops in March 1939 to perform guard duties at the Military Transit Depot on the Westerplatte peninsula just north of the port of the Free City of Danzig. Connected to the mainland by only a small pier, Westerplatte was effectively an island, and was fortified by a few guardhouses and a series of trenches. In the event of an attack, it was expected to hold out for only about 12 hours.
At the end of August 1939, trouble entered the harbour in the form of the 14,000-ton German battleship the Schleswig-Holstein (a ship predating the First World War). Although sailing under the pretext of a courtesy visit, she contained a company of marines. In the early hours of September 1, Skowron was looking through his telescope and saw a flash emanating from the ship. Within seconds, a shell had landed on a gate near the railway, and a whole wall collapsed. What Skowron had witnessed was, in all possibility, the first shot fired during the Second World War.
After the salvo had ended, the peninsula was stormed by the German marines. Taking one of only two machineguns, Skowron ran down to a guardhouse and helped to repulse the first German assault on the main gate. The attackers were expecting an easy victory, but the Poles fought back ferociously, and managed to catch the Germans in a murderous crossfire. In addition, well-placed mortar rounds also fell on the attackers, and by around 10 o’clock that morning they retreated, having suffered 50 casualties to the eight of the Poles. The German losses would have been far higher had the Polish commander not wished to conserve mortar rounds.
On the following day, the Germans stepped up their attack. “There were three attacks in the morning,” Skowron recalled, “which got worse and worse. Aircraft, reportedly 50 of them, dropped nearly 200 bombs.” The air raid not only destroyed a guardhouse, but also the Polish mortars. Supplemented by a naval barrage, those aboard the Schleswig-Holstein reckoned — with good reason — that nobody could have survived the bombardment. Despite the intensity, the Poles sat firm. “Our men were calm,” said Skowron, “nearly indifferent, because the cycle was so repetitive — aircraft, bombs, missiles, again and again.” The entire peninsula soon resembled a First World War battlefield, with huge craters, bombed-out buildings and raging fires.
Nevertheless, the Poles would not be moved. Their morale was boosted by an announcement made by the Polish Commander-in-Chief, Edward Rydz-Smigly, that all the defenders of Westerplatte would be promoted to officer rank, and would be awarded the Virtuti Militari, Poland’s highest military decoration.
With the battle for the peninsula now becoming more symbolic than tactical, the Germans threw everything they had at the defenders. Burning trains were rammed into fortifications, and a torpedo boat even launched an attack. Although the Poles stood firm, the attacks certainly took their toll. “The worst part was the lack of sleep,” said Skowron, “because we couldn’t change troops, and we had to keep watch non-stop. The Germans could change their attackers, we could not.”
Eventually, on the morning of September 7, the Poles knew that any further resistance was fruitless. With a lack of food and medical supplies, the Polish commander decided to surrender. Skowron and his fellow survivors, of whom there were some 180, were ordered to cross the canal and throw down their tunics and caps. A German motorboat appeared, and the Poles were taken prisoner. The Germans were impressed by the Polish defence, not least because it had cost them an estimated 200 to 300 casualties, and had tied up more than 3,000 troops.
Skowron was imprisoned at Stalag IA near Königsberg, after which he was made to work on a German estate. “The Germans treated us decently,” Skowron recalled, “because they knew we were from Westerplatte. They said with admiration, ‘Polish soldiers good’.” The working conditions were nonetheless tough, and Skowron ended up in hospital, and was then discharged back home in February 1941.
He soon found work as a labourer on the railways, but he continued his own war against the occupiers. He joined the underground ZWZ — the Union of Armed Struggle — for whom he reported on German troop movements and shipments.
After the war Skowron worked on the railways until his retirement in 1975.
A modest man, he did not speak much of his participation at Westerplatte, but he soon found himself being lionised by a country that was keen to show the world that Poland had not rolled over for its aggressors. Skowron took part in many anniversary celebrations of Westerplatte, and was the recipient of numerous orders, medals and decorations, as well as being promoted to major.
Skowron was married to Anna Lisek in 1937. The couple had six children. Anna died in 2000. Skowron is survived by his children.
Major Ignacy Skowron, soldier and railway worker, was born on July 24, 1915. He died on August 5, 2012, aged 97
Santiago Carrillo
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Carrillo in 2008: he eventually became a great admirer of the monarchy, seeing it as a force for democracy in Spain
Veteran Spanish Communist leader who was a central figure in his country’s turbulent political life for much of the 20th century
Santiago Carrillo was one of the last surviving Spanish politicians to have taken part in the country’s civil war, which he fought on the Republican side. Thereafter he spent decades in exile in France but returned after the death of General Franco in 1975 and played a central role in Spain’s subsequent transition to democracy, having been elected Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Spain — Partido Comunista de España (PCE) — in 1960, in the process becoming the longest-serving holder of the role.
He was widely respected for his attempts to remodel the Spanish far Left into a mainstream democratic force accepting of the monarchy, but his role in the Republican defence of Madrid in 1936 — when hundreds of political prisoners, all Franco supporters, were murdered — remained a matter of contention.
Santiago Carrillo was born in Asturias in 1915, the son of a prominent socialist, Wenceslao Carrillo. He entered the Federación de Juventudes Socialistas (Young Socialists) at 13 and was elected to its executive committee four years later; in 1934, at the age of 19, he became its secretary-general, earning him the nickname “the chrysalis in spectacles”. He was arrested as a participant in the October 1934 rising.
Released from prison in February 1936, Carrillo was invited by the Communist International (Comintern) to Moscow. On his return to Spain he engineered the merger of the Young Socialists with its communist equivalent. Confirmed as Secretary General of the amalgamated Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas, he was co-opted into the Communist Party’s central committee.
The party chose Carrillo to be one of its representatives on the Madrid Defence Junta established after the Republican Government had fled to Valencia on November 6, 1936, before the approach to the capital of Franco’s forces. Carrillo was put in charge of public order, an act which gave rise in the 1970s to accusations that he was personally responsible for the murder at Paracuellos, a village on the outskirts of Madrid, of more than 1,000 political prisoners. The latter were to have been interned there, to prevent them joining Franco’s army, but were instead killed. Carrillo always denied being involved in the killings, and asserted that they had been the work of rogue troops.
It was Stalin’s agent in Spain, Mikhail Koltsov, who had ordered the prisoners’ evacuation from Madrid, but Carrillo probably knew more about the affair than he was ever prepared to admit. It was, however, on Soviet advice that over the next two months Carrillo brought under control and disbanded the Communist, socialist and anarchist “people’s tribunals”, which had been operating in the capital since the outbreak of the war. He insisted that winning the war had to take precedence over socialist revolution.
After the Spanish Civil War Carrillo worked for a time in the Comintern Youth Secretariat in Moscow. Towards the end of 1939 he was sent to the United States, to co-ordinate the activities of its dependent organisations throughout North America. Then, after Pearl Harbor, when Spanish Communists in the US had to choose between extradition or enlistment in the US forces, he moved to Cuba and later to Mexico. On the dissolution of the Comintern in April 1943 he reverted to the orders of the Spanish Party, which was now under the direction of Dolores Ibárruri, “La Pasionaria”, in Moscow.
In the spring of 1944 Carrillo was ordered to return to Europe. The Soviet authorities had advised the party to prepare for guerrilla and political action in Spain. After an adventurous journey he reached Lisbon, where for a while he disguised his work by posing as a Latin American millionaire. Discovering the limitations of Lisbon as a base for operations in Spain, he moved to Oran in Algeria. There he severed the links which members of the party had with US intelligence services, and set about the organisation of guerrilla units under Communist commanders destined to operate in southern Spain. Meanwhile, Spanish Communists who had fought with the maquisards (French Resistance fighters) had enthusiastically recruited a force of some 15,000 ex-Republican army refugees in France. Their plan was to cross the Pyrenees in October 1944, believing that their invasion would either spark off a rising against Franco or spur the Allies into action in Spain. That did not suit Soviet policy. Carrillo was sent posthaste to stop the invasion. Reaching Toulouse too late, he crossed the Pyrenees and managed to persuade the field commanders to withdraw.
Carrillo’s next task was to retrain ideologically the Spanish Communists in France, and to select from among them and send to Spain guerrilla leaders, political activists and organisers: Franco was to be weakened by guerrilla warfare and overthrown by a general strike and the political action of all the old Popular Front parties; the new regime was in its turn to be overthrown by armed revolution. The new men, however, were not universally welcomed by the guerrilla leaders already there. Carrillo shared with others in the Spanish Politburo a tendency to suspect treachery.
The guerrilla war proved costly. Between 1945 and 1952 the guerrillas lost almost 2,000 men in battle and executions after capture. That said, the clandestine development of the party in Spain proceeded effectively, though from time to time cells were discovered by the police. In the 1950s the proselytisers sent by Carrillo were particularly successful in attracting to the party young university men and women.
The party’s headquarters had been transferred in 1946 from Moscow to Toulouse and then to Paris. In 1950, however, the party was declared illegal in France. Ibárruri returned to Moscow but left Carrillo in Paris in charge of a clandestine sub-headquarters. He assumed the surname Giscard.
Palmiro Togliatti, a friend of Carrillo’s since the Civil War, had for some time been encouraging Carrillo to reconsider the dogma that the way to Communism had to be the way taken by Lenin and Stalin. In 1956 Carrillo followed Togliatti’s interpretation of Khrushchev’s speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU): the denunciation of Stalin was proof of the magnificent infallibility of the CPSU, but he used the event to propose a new strategy.
He argued that the way to socialism in Spain should henceforth pass through “national reconciliation”: the Catholic Church was not an enemy of the people, nor were all of those who had fought on Franco’s side; armed revolution was not a sine qua non of progress towards socialism; Catholics and atheists, peasants, workers and professionals, monarchists and socialists should pardon each other and, united, overthrow Franco and the Falangists.
Carrillo’s contemporaries in the Politburo accepted more readily than their elders that reconciliation was no contradiction of Marx and Lenin on class warfare. With a judicious mixture of argument and flattery he won over Ibárruri, and thus outmanoeuvred his opponents. Three years later he prevailed upon her to surrender to him the secretary-generalship. Strategy and succession received the party’s approval at its VI Congress in East Berlin in 1960.
“National reconciliation” implied no break with Moscow. Carrillo praised the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Uprising, condemned the US intervention in Vietnam, China’s Cultural Revolution, and so on. However, Khrushchev’s fall in 1964 dealt his faith in the CPSU a severe blow and this at a time when his belief in the Soviet Union as a model socialist State had been undermined by his personal observations of realities during frequent visits to Moscow since 1950. He viewed with favour Alexander Dubcek’s attempt at socialism with a human face in Czechoslovakia, and warned the CPSU that the Spanish Party would not support Soviet intervention. Carrillo’s condemnation of the event in August 1968 was not unanimously endorsed by the Executive Committee (as the Politburo was now called) and he had the leading dissidents expelled. They established a USSR-backed rival party, which failed to prosper.
Consistently from the 1950s to the early 1970s Carrillo insisted that Franco could be overthrown by a general strike. His premises were that Spain was on the verge of economic collapse, that Franco had no popular support, and that the strike could be easily engineered. In 1963-64 two leading members of the Committee challenged those premises, and they too were expelled.
By 1974 there was little point in advocating Franco’s overthrow. It was evident that the General had little time to live. Carrillo now pledged the Communist Party to work with others towards the peaceful establishment of a parliamentary democracy after Franco’s death. He returned secretly to Spain on February 7, 1976. Franco had died seven weeks earlier, but the Party was still proscribed. On December 10 Carrillo held a press conference to announce that his party would contest the elections for the first postFranco Cortes Generales (Parliament), whether or not it had been legalised.
The police discovered Carrillo’s hiding place 12 days later, and he was detained for some weeks. Secret meetings followed between him and the Prime Minister, Adolfo Suárez, who, satisfied that Carrillo was prepared to accept King Juan Carlos as Head of State and the red and gold flag as that of Spain, authorised the legalisation of the Communist Party of Spain on April 9, 1977. At the elections the party polled 9 per cent of the votes, entitling it to 20 seats, one of them for Carrillo. In that Parliament he co-operated in the drafting of Spain’s Constitution. Re-elected in 1979, when the Communist Party won nearly 11 per cent (23 seats), he urged the governing Centre Democratic Union and the main opposition party, the Socialists, to work together for as long as extremists of the left or the right sought the overthrow of the new regime.
Before his party Carrillo at first defended his acceptance of the monarchy as practical politics, but he was to become one of the King’s most ardent admirers as the motive force behind the peaceful democratisation of Spain, and it was his party’s press which most lavishly praised the King for the part he played in the defeat of the attempt at a military coup in 1981.
During his brief detention Carrillo wrote the most famous of his many books, Eurocomunismo y Estado. In it he abjured all violence for political ends. He dismissed the dogma that the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat was ineluctable in the progress towards socialism: such progress in Spain had to be strictly in accordance with Western parliamentary practice. Private property and enterprise, at least on a small or medium scale, had a place in a socialist state. Neither the USSR’s past nor its present provided a model to be followed in Spain, he said.
A large majority of the delegates at the Party’s IX Congress, held in 1978 — the first to be held in Spain since 1932 — endorsed these views, and at Carrillo’s behest, dropped the epithet Leninist from the definition of the party.
Party membership had multiplied ten-fold to 200,000 between its legalisation and the Congress. Carrillo was confident it would increase to 300,000 within a year. He was wrong: active membership fell to 150,000 in 1980. The fall was attributed by his critics to the contradiction between the democratic ideals of Carrillo’s Eurocommunism and the party’s rigidly authoritarian internal organisation and working, coupled with Carrillo’s Stalin-like reactions whenever his views were challenged.
At the X Congress held in 1981, a radical democratisation of the statutes and limitation of the powers of the apparatus was proposed. Carrillo won the day, partly because he had previously, as far as he could legitimately under the existing statutes, controlled the selection of delegates to the Congress, and partly with a display of masterly oratorical skill which won back waverers. Nevertheless, the support given the proposals for democratisation (27 per cent) augered ill for both the unity of the Party and Carrillo’s own position.
Before the general election of 1982, Carrillo maintained the optimism that had characterised his political life. But when the votes were counted the Communists had won only 3.6 per cent of the vote and were left with a rump of five seats, while the socialists had 47.3 per cent and 201 seats, an absolute majority. It was scant consolation to Carrillo that he retained his own seat.
Carrillo resigned from the post of secretary-general shortly afterwards although he retained considerable power behind the scenes. The party suffered a series of internecine splits during the 1980s, and Carrillo was dropped from the central committee in 1985. In response he formed a new workers/communist unity party, the Partido de los Trabajadores de España-Unidad Comunista, and stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in the 1986 elections, the 1989 European elections, and for Parliament again in 1989. Thereafter he took solace in his writing, enjoying commercial success with his memoirs in 1993. As Spain came to terms with its troubled past, he was a regular guest on television and radio discussion programmes.
He was married to Carmen Menéndez, with whom he had two sons.
Santiago Carrillo, Spanish Communist, was born on January 18, 1915. He died on September 18, 2012, aged 97
