Note: In this post, I discuss the contents of a collection of photographs shared with me by one of my fourth cousins, Tom Brook. They shed light on some of our mutual ancestors and give a unique glimpse into his father’s WWII deployments, primarily in Egypt, Libya, and India.
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POST 143: TOM BROOK, BBC JOURNALIST ON SCENE THE DAY JOHN LENNON DIED
Periodically a relative or acquaintance will share with me their collection of family photos or memorabilia. Acknowledging that some readers will consider this akin to a friend inflicting their vacation photos on you, to me this is like a treasure hunt particularly when the pictures are unlabeled and I’m able to identify the subjects through logical deduction or by comparison to labeled images. Frequently, knowing the owner’s ancestral lineage helps; if they’re related to me, I’m often able to identify their ancestors because of my familiarity with our family tree.
On other occasions, the photo collections provide historic glimpses of well-known events or places or, alternatively, off-the-beat locations. It is worth remembering that World War II was a global conflict that took soldiers to often remote spots around the world. In the case of my own father’s surviving photos of his time in the French Foreign Legion while stationed in North Africa, mostly in Algeria, I’ve been told they’re unique. I would say the same regarding the collection I’m about to discuss.
My wife Ann and I recently traveled to New York to meet my fourth cousin Tom Brook and his husband Sam Wahl. (Figure 1) Beyond the fact we’d never previously met, and I was curious to make their acquaintance, Tom had mentioned his father Casper Bruck’s album of photos which he’d expressed an interest in showing me. This is an assemblage I was particularly intrigued to peruse given his family’s connection to Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] where multiple of my own ancestors also hail from. Some of our most accomplished mutual ancestors come from Breslau, several of whom are buried in the still-existing Old Jewish Cemetery [Polish: Stary Cmentarz Żydowski we Wrocławiu]. (Figure 2) Relevantly, both of our families changed their surname to “Brook” upon their arrival in Anglo-Saxon countries.
I previously introduced Tom Brook to readers in Post 143 when I discussed his role as one of the first reporters on the scene after John Lennon was shot in December 1980 outside The Dakota Building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, an event he is invariably asked about on milestone anniversaries of this tragic event. Like then, Tom still works for the BBC as the host of a weekly show called “Talking Movies,” where he reviews new releases and interviews actors.
Like other cousins I’ve discovered around the world, Tom found me through my blog when he asked if we are related. As I happened to have him in my ancestral tree, though with no details, I explained we are fourth cousins. Serendipitously, I was more recently contacted by Tom’s second cousin from Wolverhampton, England, Helen Winter, née Renshaw (Figure 3), whom I’ve previously mentioned to readers as the source of lots of family ephemera. While Helen and Tom have never linked up, Helen’s older sister Anna Renshaw clearly recalls meeting him as a child in England where both grew up. As further evidence of my ancestral connection to Tom, my fourth cousin twins (Figure 4) from Sydney, Australia, also born in England, whom I mirthfully refer to as “my movie star cousins,” are Tom’s third cousins.
In any case, during our recent encounter in New York Tom showed me his father’s photo album along with an unusually decorated cigar box that belonged to one of his ancestors, likely his great-grandfather (Figure 5); a little more on this box below. Tom allowed me to borrow the album so I could duplicate the photographs for later study. This has been invaluable because with Helen Winter’s help, together we’ve managed to identify the subjects in a few images that Tom specifically wondered about. Also, photos detailing Casper Bruck’s deployment during the war capture rare images of a few places that are today household names.
In this post, I’ll discuss a few family photos but will mostly highlight places where Casper was deployed during the war; I think this will be of broader interest to my audience. These images provide an opportunity to discuss what was going on in the war and its immediate aftermath at the time Casper took his photographs.
Given that the album belonged to Tom’s father, not unexpectedly, most images show Casper and his immediate family at various stages of their lives. In terms of family photos, I’ll address mostly those whose subjects were unknown to Tom.
One of the oldest photos in Tom’s collection is an undated Daguerreotype-like image of a youngish man with three children (Figure 6); as readers can make out, the figures are darkly illuminated. Helen Winter and I were able to determine this is Tom’s great-grandfather, Felix Friedrich Bruck (1843-1911) and his three children, Eberhard Friedrich Bruck (1877-1960), Margot Giles, née Bruck (1879-1949), and Werner Friedrich August Bruck (1880-1945). Eberhard Bruck and Werner Bruck are, respectively, Helen Winter and Tom Brook’s grandfathers as young children. Margot, the only daughter, is distinguishable because she is holding a doll. A later photo dated 1930 shows Eberhard Bruck and his daughter, also named Margot (1917-1985), and Werner Bruck (Figure 7); Margot is Helen Winter’s mother.
The youngest of Felix Bruck’s children, Werner Bruck was born on the 23rd of August 1880, and his mother, Anna Elise Bruck, née Prausnitz (1853-1880) died a week later, perhaps a result of childbearing complications. Obviously, the Daguerreotype-like picture, when Werner appears to be only a year or two old, does not include his mother. The picture clearly captures the weight of her death on the family, where all look immeasurably sad. Elsewhere among Tom’s photos is a stand-alone picture of his great-grandmother. (Figure 8)
Felix Bruck never remarried. Elsewhere in Tom’s album are a few untitled pictures of him later in life where he is portlier and more difficult to recognize compared to when he was younger. (Figures 9-10) After studying the setting and comparing the photos to similar ones among Helen’s ephemera, there is no doubt the photos depict Felix. Margot Bruck was the first of his children to bear him a grandchild, Otto Giles (1904-1980), and a photo survives of Otto as a child seated on his grandfather’s lap in his study. (Figure 11)
The surviving photos taken in Felix’s study are particularly intriguing to me. Hanging on the wall above his desk are portraits of unidentified individuals I’m almost certain depict older Bruck ancestors, possibly Felix’s grandparents. (Figure 12) Unfortunately, I have no portraits to compare them against. Helen’s collection of photos includes a comparable one of Felix seated in his study with his daughter Margot standing aside him with those same portraits visible. (Figure 13)
Beyond the pictures of Tom’s great-grandparents, Tom’s album includes pictures of his grandparents (Figure 14), parents (Figure 15-16), aunt and uncle (Figure 17), and cousins. Apart from casual family acquaintances, Helen and I have been able to identify most of the subjects. A particularly endearing photo was taken in 1928 of Casper with his younger brother Peter. (Figure 18)
Let me shift now to Casper Bruck’s intriguing wartime images.
The individual pages in Casper photo album typically note the year(s) and place(s) the pictures were taken. Casper Bruck’s album includes a page of photos taken in El Alamein, Egypt, and in Benghazi and Tripoli, Libya in 1942-43. El Alamein is a town located on the Mediterranean Sea 66 miles west of Alexandria, Egypt, while Benghazi and Tripoli are in Libya further west but also along the Mediterranean. A little historic context is useful to understand Casper’s pictures.
The Second Battle of El Alamein was fought near the western frontier of Egypt between the 23rd of October and the 4th of November 1942. El Alamein was the climax and turning point of the North African campaign during WWII and the beginning of the end of the Western Desert Campaign. The Axis army of Germany and Italy suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the British Eighth Army that prevented them from penetrating into Egypt. This kept the Suez Canal in Allied hands and prevented the full-scale invasion and seizure of the Middle Eastern and Persian oil fields.
In a 13-day battle the Axis Panzerarmee Afrika was crushed and forced to retreat from Egypt and Libya to the borders of Tunisia. The Axis fought a defensive campaign in Tunisia into 1943. Although they engaged in a tenacious rearguard action, the Axis forces were in an impossible position. In May 1943, they were forced to surrender, with the loss of around 240,000 prisoners.
Casper’s album separately includes a sequence of photos taken in Cairo; I can’t say for sure when they were taken because the last numeral on the date is hidden but I think they predate his pictures from El Alamein, meaning they were likely taken earlier in 1942 before the Second Battle of El Alamein. The images from Cairo are interesting more for what they don’t show, namely, the pyramids outside the city; curiously, several famous mosques are instead illustrated. (Figure 19)
Turning to Casper’s photos of El Alamein, one image stands out. In the foreground is a corrugated metal sign reading “El Alamein Salvage,” and in the near background is written “Springbok Road.” (Figure 20) I found an identical copy of this image that sold on eBay for £6.99. I imagine this was a popular photo spot, and that multiple examples of this picture survive in the decaying albums of former English soldiers involved in the Western Desert Campaign. Several of Casper’s photos appear to show German and Italian abandoned war materiels waiting to be broken up for scrap metal, ergo the salvage effort. (Figure 21)
Another intriguing photo in Casper’s album is simply labeled “ITIES.” (Figure 22) Having no idea what this signifies, I eventually discovered this is derogatory English slang for Italians. The photo clearly shows Italian prisoners of war. What I learned while researching this image is that unlike the Germans whose retreat from El Alamein was more orderly, thereby limiting the number of their surviving soldiers captured, their Italian allies lacked motor transport to evacuate their withdrawing units thus resulting in more Italians being swept up by the British. Regardless, by November 4 the motorized elements of the Axis were in full retreat, and because of the sluggish British follow-up they were allowed to escape virtually unscathed to Tunisia.
The page on which Casper’s pictures of Benghazi and Tripoli are found is labelled “MEF 1942-43,” which stands for “Middle East Forces 1942-43.” (Figure 23) It’s not clear that Casper was in one of vanguard British infantry divisions that participated in the Tunisian campaign that ultimately defeated the Axis forces there in 1943. Photos of Casper place him in Ismailia, Cairo, and Alexcandria, Egypt between 1942 and 1945. However, this overlaps with the period between 1942 and 1946 when he was assuredly in India and Pakistan. Possibly, Casper’s regiment was duty-based in Egypt but deployed elsewhere as needed? As we speak, I’m attempting to obtain Casper’s military dossier from the United Kingdom’s Military of Defence to better understand the sequence of his deployments.
My friend Brian Cooper, an amateur English military historian who has assisted me immeasurably in learning where my father’s first cousin, Heinz Loewenstein, was incarcerated during the war, recognized that in several of Casper’s photos where he is sporting a beret, he is wearing a badge of the Glider Pilot Regiment. (Figure 24) A 1946 group picture of Casper’s regiment labeled “Sergeant’s Mess. Glider Pilot Depot” shows the regimental badge. (Figure 25) Casper’s album includes photos of him piloting his glider (Figure 26) and flying over the Indus and elsewhere. It’s obvious Casper was a glider pilot, at least in India and Pakistan. (Figure 27)
Having never previously come across any of my distant ancestors who were glider pilots during WWII, nor photos of their activities, I did a little research. It’s quite engrossing. The most widely used glider during the war was the Waco CG-4A. Given that Casper adopted a mutt during his time in India which he named “Waco” (Figure 28) it is reasonable to assume he piloted one of these crafts.
Gliders from India supported military operations in Burma during WWII. Special operation units battled the Japanese army in Burma attempting to reopen the Burma Road linking India and China. Waco CG-4A gliders were used to land troops, ammunition, medical supplies, and even mules to carry supplies. Significantly, in a special operations battle using gliders to fight the Japanese army in Burma, more than 9,000 fighters were dropped 165 miles behind Japanese lines.
Fascinatingly, some gliders carried up to three mules; the pilots or handlers always had a pistol at the ready to shoot any mules that went berserk. While this may sound cruel, it is important to understand that a glider is built of steel tubing and doped fabric (i.e., a textile material that is impregnated with a chemical compound, known as “dope,” the primary purpose of which is to cause shrinkage of the fabric, thus making it taut and improving the flow of air over it during flight) so that it would take little for a mule to kick out the side of a glider endangering the crew and craft.
Gliders were advantageous because they could deploy large numbers of troops quickly and accurately. Also, they could land in small, inaccessible areas where a larger aircraft couldn’t land. They were also used to transport heavier equipment that was too large for parachutes or other transport aircraft. The India-Burma campaign involved difficult terrain that made it difficult to land gliders, so they were often treated as semi-expendable.
Allied forces retrieved gliders using twin-engine transports, such as a C-47 transport planes (Figure 29), through a technique referred to as “glider snatching.” The tactic involved having the transport plane fly low to the ground and quickly hooking onto a special attachment point on the glider, essentially “snatching” it into the air without needing to land. This allowed for the retrieval of troops or supplies from a combat zone where landing might be impossible; this was referred to as a “glider snatch pick-up.” This maneuver was considered risky due to the need for precise timing and low flying altitude. The Allies also used twin-engine transports to snatch up gliders filled with wounded soldiers and fly them to hospitals.
Returning briefly to the cigar box Tom Brook showed me. (see Figure 5) I shared pictures I’d taken of it with Helen, who in turn passed it along to one of our mutual German cousins. It appears that one of the captions is the beginning of Heinrich Heine’s lyrical love poem, “Die Lorelei.” According to modern scholars, Heine is now seen as a romantic poet, for his passion, his independence of mind, and his hatred of political repression. However, he was critical of German Romanticism, which he saw as idealizing the feudal past, being a deterrent to political progress, and encouraging xenophobia. For this reason, his books were later banned by the Nazis. The inclusion of Heine’s poem on Felix Bruck’s cigar box may have signified his attachment to liberal principles.
More could certainly be gleaned from Casper’s photos, but my intent has merely been to highlight a few unique images that provide a sense of the theaters in which Casper Bruck fought. For readers holding comparable collections of family photos, military or otherwise, scrutinizing them with a hand lens will no doubt yield some intriguing finds. Personally, I repeatedly find myself returning to my father’s pictures, continually discovering something I’d previously missed.
REFERENCES
Battles of El-Alamein. Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/event/battles-of-El-Alamein
India in World War II (2024, October 17). In Wikipedia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_in_World_War_II
National WWII Glider Pilots Association. 1944, India/Burma was the glider snatching capital of the world.
https://ww2gp.org/burma/buma_compulation.pdf
National WWII Glider Pilots Association. GliderPickup.
https://www.ww2gp.org/gliderpickup/
Second Battle of El Alamein (2024, December 6). In Wikipedia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_El_Alamein
Tunisia 1942-1943. British Infantry Divisions. British Military History.
Docs – Tunisia 1942 – 1943 – British Infantry Divisions – British Military History