My investigation into his life story was prompted by my father telling me that his father had been awarded an MC in the war. I had not been able to find evidence of this. In the photo of him in the uniform of an RSF officer, presumably taken after the war had ended, he appears to be wearing the medal ribbons for the awards that he was granted in May 1919. He appears to sport three campaign medals but there is also what seems to be a Military Cross. There is no record of such an award in the London Gazette,, he is listed without decorations in the Army List of March 1919 and is not shown in the Supplement of April 1919 which lists officers awarded an MC. When he assumed the appointment with the Nizam’s Railways and again as President of the Secunderabad Club in 1946 Bruce claimed that he was awarded a Military Cross. My father would have seen that claim on the Club presidents-honour-board.

In addition, in the photograph Bruce is sporting three wound stripes stripes on his left arm. His medical record is complete and whilst Bruce was hospitalised on three occasions, he was never wounded in action. The wearing of wound-stripes when they had not been awarded adds to the suspicion that he had falsely claimed to have been awarded the MC. (Strangely, in his attestation papers he claims that he was born in Derby and is 19 years old when his birth and baptism certificate place his birth as Middleton, NY State and his age being 18).

This does not detract from his courage in firstly volunteering at the outbreak of war and, having seen active service, volunteering to go to the front and reassume his commission in 1917.