USS Robert G. Bradley FFG 49 / Lieutenant
Robert Graham Bradley / Oliver Hazard Perry class Guided Missile Frigate
|
|
s e a f o r c e s – online
|
Naval Forces
Technology, History & Information
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||
Guided Missile Frigate
|
||||||||||
FFG 49 -
USS Robert G. Bradley
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||
USS Robert G. Bradley (FFG 49)
|
US Navy photo
|
|||||||||
Type,
Class:
|
|
Guided Missile Frigate; Oliver Hazard Perry – class (long
hull);
planned and built as FFG
49; |
||||||||
Builder:
|
|
Bath Iron Works, Bath,
Maine, USA |
||||||||
STATUS:
|
|
Awarded: April 28, 1980; Laid down: December 28, 1982; Launched: August 13, 1983; Commissioned:
June 30, 1984; ACTIVE UNIT/ in
commission (Atlantic Fleet) |
||||||||
Homeport:
|
|
Mayport, Florida, USA
|
||||||||
Namesake:
|
|
Named after and in honor of Lieutenant Robert Graham Bradley
(1921 – 1944); > see history, below; |
||||||||
Ship's
Motto:
|
|
> POWER TO PREVAIL < |
||||||||
Technical Data:
(Measures, Propulsion, Armament,
Aviation, etc.)
|
|
see: INFO > Guided
Missile Frigate / Oliver Hazard Perry - class. |
||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
Pictures,
photos & more ...
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
Robert
Graham Bradley |
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Photo credits: US Navy, US Naval Historical
Center |
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
Namesake
& History: |
||||||||||
|
Lieutenant
Robert Graham Bradley (September 26, 1921 – October 24, 1944): |
||||||||||
|
Robert Graham Bradley was born in Washington
D.C. on 26 September 1921. He was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy on 9
June 1939, and graduated with the class of 1943 on 19 June 1942, due to the
exigencies of war. From 3 July to 27 October 1942, he underwent instruction
at the Atlantic Subordinate Command, Service Force, at Norfolk, VA, before he
reported to the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, NJ, on b29 October
to assist in fitting out the fleet carrier USS Princeton (CVL-23), which was
ultimately placed in commission on 25 February 1943. While serving on that
ship, he received promotions to Lieutenant (junior grade) and Lieutenant on 1
May 1943 and 1 July 1944, respectively, and took part in every operation
conducted by the ship ranging from the occupation of Baker Island (September
1943) to the Battle of Leyte Gulf (October 1944), in which the ship was lost.
On 24 October 1944, PRINCETON was
operating of the coast of Luzon, in the Leyte Gulf, about 150 miles east of
Manila, when a Japanese dive bomber attacked her, releasing a single bomb
that penetrated the flight hanger and main decks and then exploded, touching
off a conflagration that soon had the carrier's entire hanger deck ablaze. A
series of explosions then rocked the ship. Lieutenant Bradley, PRINCETON's
Assistant First Lieutenant, led a repair party in the valiant effort to
control the fires on the second and third decks until the intense heat
generated by those flames forced him and his men to fall back. After ensuring
that no wounded men had been left behind during the abandonment, Bradley
followed his men into the water at about 1005 and was picked up by the
destroyer MORRISON (DD 560) soon thereafter. Shortly after 1300, Bradley left
MORRISON and rejoined his ship and the efforts to save her.
Unfortunately a submarine and air alert at 1330 drew off BIRMINGHAM (CL 62)
and MORRISON - the two ships then alongside - to assume screening positions,
at a time when the fire was almost totally under control. The persistent
blaze flared up. With renewed vigor MORRISON and BIRMINGHAM attempted to
renew their efforts alongside PRINCETON getting a line onboard the carrier at
about 1515. Shortly thereafter, at 1523, the flames touched off a mass
detonation of four hundred 100-pound bombs stowed aft in a torpedo magazine
in PRINCETON. This explosion literally blew off the carrier's stern, killing
Bradley and every man in the repair party that had been in the vicinity. Bradley had repeatedly risked his
life, entering the most dangerous areas below decks to ascertain the
extent of damage and to fight the fires blazing onboard ship. For his
outstanding fortitude, great personal valor and self-sacrificing devotion to
the completion of an extremely perilous task, as well as his extraordinary
heroism in the line of duty, Lieutenant Robert Graham Bradley was awarded the
Navy Cross, posthumously. |
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
USS Robert G.
Bradley (FFG 49): |
||||||||||
|
... FFG 49 history
wanted ... |
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
… and patches … |
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
