Family’s delight to learn of fifth Military Cross

VE DAY: Descendant of Dundee brothers discovers another honour for gallantry

A descendant of three Dundee brothers who won four Military Crosses between them during the Second World War has expressed delight after learning that another close relative was also awarded the honour for gallantry.

In November, Ian Rae presented the four medals to The Mcmanus in Dundee to honour the remarkable battlefield achievements of his late father Stanley Rae and his uncles Ian, Bruce (who won two medals) as well as Douglas who spent most of the hostilities as a prisoner of war.

However, he was delighted to learn this week from The Courier his father Stanley’s first cousin, Captain William Bruce Rae-smith, also won a Military Cross bringing the total to five.

An Evening Telegraph newspaper report from May 4 1945 headlined ‘Fourth Cousin to win MC’ was stumbled across by The Courier in the British Newspaper Archive while researching a supplement to mark the forthcoming 75th anniversary of VE Day.

Mr Rae told The Courier: “That’s very interesting, that’s a first cousin of my father’s.

“My father Stanley knew Bill well and we often met up when he came north home from Hong Kong and lived at Oathlaw.

“He was a fine man but was badly injured in the war losing an eye and having other problems too.”

Mr Rae said that his father and uncles rarely talked about their wartime experiences – as was often the case with that generation. His uncle Douglas once told him a story about being captured at St Valery.

However, he revealed it was only after his uncle Bruce died that the family acquired his equivalent of two Military Crosses. The first was awarded after leading a daring bayonet charge on enemy positions in North Africa, and the additional bar was for later heroics in north-west Europe in 1945.

“It was about 1980 when I said to my father ‘where are Bruce’s medals?’,” Mr Rae recalled.

“He said ‘I have no idea’. A friend of mine was a colonel in the Royal Scots living next door to me: he said ‘why don’t you write to the war medals office?’ The form came back and said they’d never been claimed. It had to be signed for by the oldest living member of the family who at that time was my father.” malexander@thecourier.co.uk The story of the Rae brothers is included in a special VE Day 75th anniversary supplement that will appear in The Courier tomorrow.

Main picture: Dougie Nicolson. Mcmanus curator Carly Cooper, Sinclair Aitken, formerly of Leisure and Culture Dundee, and Ian Rae. Below: Mr Rae’s uncle Major Ian Rae.