Bruce Marsh: – [Heath 1929–1935]
Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, the son of Arthur Marsh, (1876-1967) master baker/confectioner, and his wife, Alice (1892-1974) nee Calthrop, he was the second youngest of seven children. He was the grandson of John Marsh (1849-1916), the founder of the catering and confectionary business John Marsh and Sons who were always chosen to provide all catering and dining requirements for the royal family on their visits to the district.
Bruce was educated at Queens Road Junior School and then Heath Grammar School, (1929-1935), where he distinguished himself at rugby union and excelled on the sports field. He held several athletic records. He broke the English Schoolboys National Shot Putt record in 1935. Whilst at Heath he also was the Halifax and District Breaststroke Champion from 1933 to 1935, only relinquishing his title so he could concentrate on athletics and rugby. He was victor ludorum at Heath in 1935 and again at the Halifax Technical College in 1936.
The photograph, taken on Sports Day Thursday, , shows Bruce (aged exactly 17 years and 59 days old) just as he finishes putting the 12lbs shot a distance of 44 feet 7½ inches — a new English schools record. Later in the year, he represented English schools at an international meet at the White City in London, eventually extending his own record with a putt of 44 feet 10½ inches. His school record was never beaten and, after approximately 35 years, lbs were replaced by kgs and a new weighted shot was introduced. Instead of converting Bruce’s record to take into account the new weight, the decision was taken to retire his record and consign it to history — so it never will be beaten.
It was not only in sport and athletics that Bruce excelled; he was also an accomplished musician. He was a very talented amateur violinist (one piece he was noted for was being able to play the slow movement of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto) and he played the piano well by ear.
In 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War, he was conscripted and joined the British Royal Navy. He trained in all aspects of signalling at HMS Royal Arthur, Skegness, Lincolnshire, England and qualified as Signalman. He went on the dangerous North Atlantic convoys where a ship could be picked off at any time by the German U-Boats.
Bruce had only been at sea a few months when, on 30th August 1940, the ship on which he was sailing, the Dutch vessel the SS Volendam, was torpedoed. The Holland America Lines Volendam was the commodore’s flagship in the convoy (Rear Admiral G H Knowles), bound for Halifax, Canada and New York with 320 children on board. It was struck by torpedoes fired by the German U-60 and all passengers and crew abandoned ship. All except the purser, who drowned, were rescued by other vessels in the convoy. According to a national newspaper report at the time, “although the children were sea-sick in the lifeboats they showed great pluck and kept their spirits up and those of the crew by heartily singing ‘Roll Out the Barrel’”. SS Volendam was then towed to Gourock on the River Clyde, Scotland, where they found another unexploded torpedo embedded in her bow!
(This was the first ship attacked that was carrying British children to safety in Canada. SS Volendam passengers, evacuees and crew had been lucky; the ill-fated vessel City of Benares that left Liverpool, England on 13th September 1940 was not. She was attacked and sank in 30 minutes. Of the 470 on board, 90 were evacuee children, 77 of whom perished. In all 260 lives were lost. Following the attacks on these two vessels the government-sponsored programme of taking children to safety across the Atlantic was halted in September 1940.)
Within three months Bruce was attacked and sunk again! On the 15th November 1940, as part of the commodore’s staff (Rear Admiral Knowles again) on convoy SL53 when returning home from the Southern Atlantic, the flagship MV Apapa was dive-bombed by a German Focke-Wulf aircraft. Their quarters were blown to pieces. Luckily he survived and returning four times at great personal risk to himself to search for his missing friend, Signalman Terry Lendrum, including once with the only other man left aboard, the Rear Admiral, Bruce did not stop until he knew Terry had been killed by the explosion. The raft on which he eventually got away capsized and he then had to survive in the Atlantic Ocean for eight hours before being picked up by a destroyer.
For this heroic, unselfish action he was awarded the Medal of the Military Division of the O.B.E., one of only two awarded to convoy signalmen in the Second World War. The award to Convoy Signalman Bruce Marsh appeared in the third supplement of The London Gazette on Tuesday 11th March 1941 and reads: ‘For gallantry in rescue work while on convoy duties.’ Owing to convoy duties, he was not allowed to receive his award until 24th November 1942. However, on this day a very proud mother and younger sister, Pauline, accompanied now Leading Signalman Bruce Marsh to Buckingham Palace, London, to receive the award from the monarch, H.R.H. King George VI.
It was whilst on one Atlantic convoy that Bruce got chatting to an American photographer who introduced himself as Robert Capa. They got on well and he featured in some of Robert’s monochrome photographs which he took on board as part of his latest assignment. These appeared in editions of the British magazine ‘Illustrated’ and ‘Colliers’ on 13th June 1942 and the 1st August 1942 respectively.
Throughout the six years of the war Bruce Marsh was on the commodore’s staff on all the convoys he sailed, starting as an Ordinary Signalman and ending as a Yeoman of Signals.
After the war he left the Royal Navy and qualified as a teacher, spending most of his 34 year career at Warley Road Junior School, Halifax, England, where he must have taught in excess of 1,000 pupils over the years.
On Trafalgar Day, 21st October 1950, he married Margaret McVeagh S.R.N. (1921-1986), a nursing sister, and had two sons Andrew (b. 1954) and Jonathan (b.1959).
Andrew Marsh [Heath 1966–1973]
Footnote:
After my father’s death in 1998, I searched online for Robert Capa and came across the International Center of Photography in New York and the ‘Capa in Color’ 2005 exhibition. There on the front cover of the exhibition’s catalogue in a cream pullover and signalling with a hand-held aldis lamp was my father Bruce Marsh! I could not believe it. The earliest colour photograph I had previously seen of my father was taken in 1964, whereas this was taken by Robert Capa in 1942 on that Atlantic convoy!