page_title: Dominic Bruce
section_title: Liberated from Coldtiz
hierarchical_section_title: Dominic Bruce / Second World War / Liberated from Coldtiz
caption_attribution_description: English: The German Army issue pistol used by Bruce in a failed attempt to liberate a chicken from the Colditz kitchens
context_page_description: Dominic Bruce, OBE, MC, AFM, KSG 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".
  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.
  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.
context_section_description: Bruce was eventually liberated on 16 April 1945 by the US Army. In the hours, prior to the liberation, Bruce would have witnessed the castle being shelled, he'd have noted his comrade Bader getting knocked out off his false legs when Baders window was hit with a shell. Prior to liberation, he'd have also witnessed the POW's hanging French and British flags, and a flag with POW on it being hung. In a 1973 interview, Bruce described the day of liberation as, pure wild west, getting guns, going off to liberate chickens and wine, and having a great time.
  In the IWM tapes Bruce describes the scene. The first GI through the castle gates heard a voice from a second floor window. "Take that man's sidearm" the voice ordered. The GI duly disarmed a German guard, taking his Walther PP (the same pistol that Hitler used to commit suicide) and holster. "Tie it onto this piece of string" the voice said. The GI complied. The pistol (which is still in the possession of the Bruce family) was hauled up the castle wall and disappeared into the window. Bruce (who, like the other prisoners and Germans alike, had been at near starvation levels during the last months of the war) went directly to the castle kitchens and put the gun to the head of a German cook and demanded a chicken. Sadly, there were none to be had.
  Travelling home, Bruce and his comrades were loaded on to a lorry, taken to a Luftwaffe airfield and flown by a Dakota to Liege, then to Brussels and then onto Westcott in Oxfordshire, England. He and his RAF comrades would then have travelled by train to Cosforth to be debriefed, and fed bacon and egg, prior to travelling to Victoria railway station in London where he'd meet the two small boys (and the wife) he had not seen since 1941.
caption: The Walther PP Wehrmacht standard issue pistol used by Bruce in a failed attempt to liberate a chicken from Hitler's tyranny
exif: {"Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK EASYSHARE V1003 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "480", "Image YResolution": "480", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "190", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "24488", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5483", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:06:30 17:43:00", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:06:30 17:43:00", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "933/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "21/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "171/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3648", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2736", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "24352", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "80", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "81", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}