News-Info-Alerts

Re: Kwai Bridge Camp Decoder Passes

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: August 25, 2002

"DOROTHY BRIDGE DIES AT AGE OF 76

DUNDEE-BORN Dorothy Bridge, former personal secretary to the commander of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation, has died. She was 76.

Ms Bridge enjoyed a globe-trotting career, which saw her visit some of the world’s most dangerous places. Thirty-five years ago, during the Six Day War in 1967, she avoided Israeli gunfire and bombing raids to retrieve the UN flag which flew from the roof of the government house building in Jerusalem.

She spent her early years in Dundee’s William Street and attended Stobswell School, before working as a secretary at solicitors Ross and Co.

When the second world war began, Ms Bridge joined the FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry).

She was posted to India, where she was based at the Calcutta HQ of Force 136. Among the tasks assigned to them was encoding and decoding the cyphers for the raid on the POW camp at the bridge on the River Kwai.

Returning from India after the war, Ms Bridge joined the Foreign Office, where she was in the typing pool and also worked for Ernest Bevin, who had been Minister of Labour during the war.

Among those working there at the time were Burgess and McLean, later tried for treason for spying for the Russians.

Ms Bridge left the Foreign Office to work for the UN in Geneva, and her globe- trotting began in earnest. Her work took her to UN HQ in New York, Yemen, and the Middle East.

She also spent time in Beirut before moving to Jerusalem where she began working for General Von Horn, the UN Truce Supervision Organisation commander.

Ms Bridge retired in the early 80s and returned to her home town of Dundee. When she returned to the city, she brought with her the UN flag, which she had kept since 1967.

She settled in Broughty Ferry but her globe-trotting days were not over as she and her partner Derek Watson decided to travel the world.

She is survived by her partner, Derek.

© D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd., Dundee, Scotland, UK"