RALPH F. BRADFORD, JR., LT, USN

Ralph Bradford, Jr. '22

Date of birth: August 25, 1899

Date of death: November 5, 1931

Age: 32

Lucky Bag

From the 1922 Lucky Bag:

RALPH FRIEND BRADFORD, JR.

Pontiac, Illinois

"Bud," "Brad," "Reddo."

"STOP! Oh please stop, mister, and give us a ride to Annapolis." (But the car passed on without slowing down.) "All right then, **?!— ." Baltimore road—18 miles from Annapolis—6.25 P.M.—"Bud" and two other frenchers—Ford—no lights—drivers' eyesight 10-10-15—result: Ford still as death in nearby cornfield. And they got back without being ragged.

Plebe Year he was as down in the mouth as Jonah but, like that Bible celebrity, he, too, came out all right. He swore he'd never have Taps blown while the undertaker threw sand in his face, but one diag brought life and hope. Today he's as happy as a mule eating briars. Get him to tell you about the "Yellow Cab"—with the exception of the spare tire—which he bought during Christmas Leave of Second Class Year!

Wednesdays and Saturdays "Bud" trained for the Olympic walking race but for some reason Navy neglected to enter a team. What an opportunity for fame was thereby lost! Nevertheless "Brad" is one of the few who rate the khaki N with crossed shoes.

RALPH FRIEND BRADFORD, JR.

Pontiac, Illinois

"Bud," "Brad," "Reddo."

"STOP! Oh please stop, mister, and give us a ride to Annapolis." (But the car passed on without slowing down.) "All right then, **?!— ." Baltimore road—18 miles from Annapolis—6.25 P.M.—"Bud" and two other frenchers—Ford—no lights—drivers' eyesight 10-10-15—result: Ford still as death in nearby cornfield. And they got back without being ragged.

Plebe Year he was as down in the mouth as Jonah but, like that Bible celebrity, he, too, came out all right. He swore he'd never have Taps blown while the undertaker threw sand in his face, but one diag brought life and hope. Today he's as happy as a mule eating briars. Get him to tell you about the "Yellow Cab"—with the exception of the spare tire—which he bought during Christmas Leave of Second Class Year!

Wednesdays and Saturdays "Bud" trained for the Olympic walking race but for some reason Navy neglected to enter a team. What an opportunity for fame was thereby lost! Nevertheless "Brad" is one of the few who rate the khaki N with crossed shoes.

Loss

Ralph was lost on November 5, 1931 when a 5" gun turret aboard USS Colorado (BB 45) exploded during practice off the coast of San Pedro, California. Four others were also lost, and another 23 wounded.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Ralph graduated from Pontiac high school. In the fall of 1917, he entered the University of Illinois. He received his appointment to the Naval Academy from Representative Sterling.
In July 1926 The Pantagraph newspaper, Bloomington, reported that Ralph had sent souvenirs home from his naval travels. “One of the souvenirs sent or brought home by him from his travels, one of the most remarkable, and only highly prized by members of his family, is a hardened piece of lava from Mt. Vesuvius, with an Italian coin held firmly in the center. During one of the wildest eruptions the mount has ever had, Ensign Bradford came close to the crater and obtained this molten lava and dropped an Italian coin in it for a souvenir. Two gavels, one of stone and the other of wood, were brought to the Pontiac Masons from Solomon’s quarry.”
In February 1929 Ralph attended the Illinois Izaak Walton League banquet in Mattoon with his parents. Ralph was a Knight Templar of the Pontiac lodge. His father had just been elected head of the Illinois Department of Conservation.
Ralph spent two years as naval tactics instructor at Northwestern University. He was to have been married in the next two weeks to Helen May of Hinsdale, Illinois.
Ralph’s father was a druggist who held a government office in connection with the naval revenue service in the port of Chicago in May 1922. He had been the former game and fish warden of Illinois. Ralph’s mother was Harriet, and his three sisters were Bonita 1893 (Mrs. Harry O. Allison of Springfield,) Mrs. Harriet Fischler, and Mary (Mrs. Richard C. Reinagle of Pontiac.)

Ralph is buried in Illinois.

Photographs

From the Northwestern yearbook in 1931
From the Chicago Tribune on June 5, 1922

Navy Directories & Officer Registers

The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.

The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.

The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.