Robert Joesph Bradley
A pilot in arms
Who was he?
Robert Bradley Joseph was born on May 29 1921 in South Mountain in Ontario into a English Catholic family to his mother, Mary Ellen Bradley and his father Fredrick Michael Bradley (a civil servant in the government). He lived at 259 powell Ave. He went to Corpus Christie from 1927 to 1935 then attended Glebe from 1935-1936 and 1937-1940 but from 1936-1937 he attended St.Patricks college (currently Immaculata high school). His hobbies were hockey, swimming, skiing and after high school he worked as as printer from 1940-1941 at the British American Bank Note company and printed war bonds, money and propaganda for Canada and foreign governments. He enlisted on Feb 26 1942 (I can infer out of the facts that he was 22 years old and the pressures of his friends and family made him sign up) (also the fact he had no wife who would be a widow if they married so the government targeted him). So he signed up for the New Canadian Air Force a new state of the art war where you flew amazing machines and the war and places you bombed were hundreds of kilometers below and so he was inducted into the BCAT(British Commonwealth Air Training Plan) and reached the rank of pilot of a Lancaster air bomber and trained for 2 years and hundreds of hours of flying, training, basic survival training in case he got shot down, physical and mental training and working with his crew for days on end. Before finally dying in a bombing mission over a city near Berlin wherer he bombed industrial centers to sway the tide of war for the allies and allow the people of the world to live in peace, knowing that the horrors of the last world war; the hatreds, religious/racial tensions such as the Holocaust and Japanese Canadians would never happen again, for all the battles fought the men and women that died and their sacrifices that allow us to live in peace, but never forget their sacrifices .
Where did he serve
He was taken on strength (brought to a military depot) in toronto where he was issued his uniform and such and stayed there in Toronto for 13 days with the rank of air crewman.
Untill he was sent to his new unit from Toronto to base on the outskirts of Toronto to be given basic training where he reached the rank of leading aircraftman. He was then sent from the training base in Toronto (achieving the rank if technical Sergant before he left) to Jarvis Ontario where he was trained to be a pilot. It was there he reached the rank of warrant officer and was taken to a base in St. Johns where after his final training at the Elementary flying training school there, and he reached the rank of pilot and was sent to a airbase that no longer exists but I found out that is was located near Centralia Ontario. From there he was then taken to Halifax and shipped overseas where he was taken on strength and struck off strength at aLindholm Yorkshire England and served there for 6 months completing missions over different industrial centers in the air war against Germany preparing centain areas of France and destroying industrial centers in Germany for the invaision that was to come 5 months after his. Till he was marked as missing presumed dead January 27 1944.
What his missions were like?
The crews are briefed on their target and make preparations to their aircraft such as loading and preparing the bombs, minor repairs to be made made. maps and the bombers course plotted for the bombing (navigator) the machine guns of the gunners are loaded,the radio operator checks the radio. Once all this is done the plane takes off the pilot and flight engineer pilot the plane while carefully listening to the navigator and maintaining a look out for enemy aircraft as they all sit n their flight suits with their enforced vests and oxygen masks covering their faces. As the gunners keep a look out for enemy aircraft with the pilots and the radio operator listens to the crackles of the radio for hours on end waiting for orders and the navigator plots their co-ordinates and instruct the pilots and prepares the bombadier as Flak anti-arcraft goes off around the arcraft till they open the bomb doors and deliver the bombs at which point the crew travels to the rally point (from where they travel to base) and the men are debriefed as their commanders plan their next mission.
Death
Died: on January 27 1944 on a bombing raid over Berlin (no one on board survives)
Cause of death: unkown
Suspected cause of death: Flak anti-aircraft fire/enemy fighter pilots shooting out the gunners and then destroying the aircraft.
Mission: destroy German industrial centers around Berlin
Purpose of the mission: Stop the manufacture of ammuntion, weapons and airplanes to hinder the German war machine and give allied forces in Russia and Egypt time to prepare their positions and make preparations for the eventual counter-attack against Germany on those fronts, and then the next objective will overcome their air forces to make invaision of the european mainland possible with British, American, and Candian troops to ease the pressure on the eastern front and liberate the countries of europe.
Likely scenario(s) of death: Targeted by searchlight on a bombing run with his squadron (the 408 "Goose" squadron) and accompanying fighters and became targeted Flak/enemy aircaft fire till he was hit resulting in a instant explosion all onboard immediatly (most likely).
His mother recieved his life insurance of roughly 1500 $.
Buried in Hanover war cemetary in Germany after partial dog tags were identified
- "CANADIAN WARPLANE HERITAGE." CANADIAN WARPLANE HERITAGE. Canadian Warplane heritage museum, n.d. Web. 2 May 2012. <http://www.warplane.com/pages/aircraft_lancaster.html>. (tags:none | edit tags)
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Comments (2)
Rachel Collishaw said
at 9:13 am on May 3, 2012
Your final product will need to be in paragraphs and telling a story - no lists.
Rachel Collishaw said
at 10:23 pm on May 7, 2012
Yellow is spelling or capitalization - please correct. May be more errors in the final paragraph - please check that one yourselfBlue is punctuation - commas, periods - it can't all be the same sentence!
No need to use the military terminology (TOS, SOS), just say he went to the different places for the trainings. Note anything unusual about his training.
The air base in Britain is usually listed in the documents - look carefully.
You have found out some details of a bombing mission but not details around Bradley's death. How did he die? Usually you can find what his squadron was doing around that time and some report of his death. What was the bombing damage in Hanover? Why was it an important target? Need to make the connections!
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