Ewen Cameron Bruce

Ewen Cameron Bruce was a British Army officer who served with the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps during the First World War. He was awarded the Military Cross for his conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in salvaging tanks under heavy shell fire at the Battle of Messines in July 1917 which resulted in him losing his left arm to a gunshot wound. After the war, Bruce went to Russia and volunteered to command a British tank mission assisting the White Army under Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel to fight the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. Bruce was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his bravery during the June 1919 Battle of Tsaritsyn for single-handedly storming and capturing the fortified city of Tsaritsyn, now called Volgograd, under heavy shell fire in a single tank; this led to the successful capture of over 40,000 prisoners. The fall of Tsaritsyn greatly helped the White Russian Cause. Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart stated that Bruce's actions during this battle was "one of the most remarkable feats in the whole history of the Tank Corps."