Armistice Day Commemorations – Lest We Forget

Today, like millions of people across the country, I stopped at 11 am to remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the service of this country during both World Wars. Uppermost in my thoughts was not just that of my great-grandfather who earned both the Military Medal and the Military Cross during WW1, but a man who not only miraculously survived WW2, who never took up arms, and yet became the British Empire’s most decorated serviceman of WW2. I’m referring to John Bridge, the inspiration for my Death to Touch series of novels.

John Bridge, GC, GM & Bar, was the first person to be awarded a bar to his George Medal. He and an Australian, Hugh Syme, are the only two people to earn the George Cross as well as a bar to the George Medal. Both men, along with other Rendering Mines Safe Officers, ie bomb disposal officers, again and again demonstrated a total disregard for their safety in defuzing ever more sophisticated and deadly German mines. The first of my WW2 novels, They Have No Graves as Yet, offers a fascinating and spine-tingling insight into their extraordinary courage.

Bridge was a school master teaching physics in Sheffield at the outbreak of WW2. Despite being a pacifist, he answered the call for volunteers to join the Royal Navy's new RMS units, established to deal with magnetic mines being dropped by parachute on cities to create terror and destruction. He was one of eight physics masters called on account of their scientific knowledge since the design of the German electronic fuzes in their mines was still a mystery to the Admiralty.

Having already won the George Medal twice, in August 1943 he was sent to Sicily to clear the harbour of Messina of some ingenious and deadly mines and depth charges. Such was the intricacy of the booby traps, all members of the previous disposal team had been killed or wounded. Even so, the pressure was on to clear the harbour for the Allied landings on the Italian mainland. In anticipation of such a requirement, Bridge had taught himself to dive and personally led his team on 28 dives to discover the new type of booby trap and clear over 200 charges in time for the main assault on Italy. One of his dives lasted 20 hours. For his valour, he was awarded the George Cross.

Nonetheless, this was not the end to Bridge's distinctive war service and heroism. In September 1944, whilst clearing unexploded mines and bombs in the port of Antwerp, he was flown urgently to Nijmegen to deal with two mines resting against the major bridge crossing the river Waal. The charges had been laid by German frogmen to delay the Operation Market Garden convoys. Another had already brought down the railway bridge. Some people considered at the time that Bridge should have been awarded the Victoria Cross for successfully rendering safe the mines as the advancing forces were under fire, or at least a bar to his George Cross, but according to Bridge, his commanding officer informed him, “I thought of recommending you for another gong, but you have had your quota.”

Bridge was to survive the war and return to education. He died on 14 December 2006.

Lest we forget!