Captain Peter E Bromley-Martin

Captain. Peter Bromley-Martin, was born on the 18 March 1903, in London, Middlesex, and commissioned in the Grenadier Guards, as a Second Lieutenant on the 23 October 1939.

He married Diana Frances Townshend on 23 February 1933, in London. They were the parents of at least 1 son, and were living at St Albans, Hertfordshire in 1939.

He volunteered for Airborne Forces and commanded L-Troop, 11th Special Air Service Battalion when it was formed in early 1941, this being the eleventh troop to be formed in the unit. It consisted of, nearly, all Guardsmen.

Upon the conversion to the 1st Parachute Battalion, in late August 1941, he was appointed as the Commander of ‘U’ Company. This sub-unit of the Battalion did not last long & was gradually broken up and ceased to exist on the 17 October 1941.

On the 15 September 1941 he was posted to the 1st Parachute Brigade Headquarters, where he later acted as the Liaison for ‘C’ Company, 2nd Parachute Battalion preparing for Operation 'BITING'.

He is mentioned in the 1st Parachute Brigade HQ, War Diary in Jan/Feb 1942, where Brigadier. Gale recommended that he was posted out of the Brigade in February 1942 - in part of a letter, Appx 5, War Diary.

The first time he is mentioned in a publication is in ‘By Air To Battle’, an HMSO booklet published in 1945.

‘That accidents were not altogether avoidable is shown by the official report of Captain P. E. Bromley-Martin on what happened to him on February 4th, 1941. During a dropping exercise he jumped fourth, after his colleague, Major H.O. Wright. “The next recollection I have,” he states, “is that of Major Wright with parachute open and canopy fully filled, some 150 feet directly above me. My parachute had at that time not fully opened and I bad then the gravest doubts as to whether it would fully function before it had been repacked. I was unable to devise a method of repacking it within the limited time at my disposal. As I was also unable to think of any satisfactory means of assisting the contraption to perform the functions which I bad been led to expect were automatic, in my submission I had no alternative but to fall earthwards at, I believe, the rate of thirty two feet per second accelerating to the maximum speed of 176 feet .... This I did .... Having dropped a certain distance, my parachute suddenly opened and I made a very light landing.”

This is also used, along with other parts of his involvement in the Bruneval Raid, in ‘The Red Beret’ by H St. G Saunders pages 35, 57-58.

He then moved to the Middle East, where he was based at Cairo with Force 133 (this was part of the Special Operation Executive set-up in that area), and after the capitulation of Italy he moved to Bari. By now a Temporary Major, he was involved in operations in both Italy and Serbia, between the 11th November 1943 and the 12th March 1944.

Peter Edward Bromley-Martin died on the 29 January 1968, in Builth, Breconshire, Wales at the age of 64.

NOTE: With thanks for documents & information supplied by John Howes.