Leading Seaman Art Bradfield, Simcoe; Dieppe Veteran and More.
"Everybody in NFLD is talking about Bradfield's performance"
Photo Credit - From the collection of Jack Bradfield, Simcoe
Introduction:
Art Bradfield has several connections to the members of Combined Operation I am most familiar with, including my father. He enlisted in and began his first round of training in Hamilton, Ontario at HMCS Star. He next travelled to Halifax and HMCS Stadacona for further training and, with most of the other members of the Effingham Division, volunteered for Combined Operations in November or December, 1941.
Shortly thereafter he was transported to Scotland aboard the S.S. Vollendam and then entrained to Hayling Island on the south coast of England. While encamped at HMS Northney III he learned what his obligation to the Combined Operations organization looked like; it looked like a variety of landing crafts and lots of them. He next trained at HMS Quebec, on Loch Fyne just south of Inveraray, Scotland with his mates for their first action (completely unknown to them), the Dieppe Raid.
More details follow below, including a rare, very surprising and much appreciated news article (from the collection of Art's son, Jack) out of 'A Newfoundland Port' dated December 8 (1944).
Surprising? How so? See for yourself:
Photo w caption from Nfld. newspaper, 1944
(LS. refers to Leading Seaman, RCNVR rank)
Some 'surprise' refers to "10 years' vaudeville experience" prior to Mr. Bradfield's WWII Navy service in the RCNVR and Combined Operations. I was somewhat prepared for what happened during his overseas service (which included participation in the Dieppe raid), because he was in the first draft of volunteers for Combined Operations to go overseas from Canada, like my father and about 50 other members of the Effingham Division (out of Halifax). I am familiar with most of my father's adventures and he mentions Art Bradfield in his memoirs on more than one occasion and they appear in photographs together as well.
That being said, I attach more surprise to what happened after he returned to Canada in December, 1943. E.g., Bradfield performed duties in the Atlantic Ocean before settling into onshore duties and activities at HMCS Avalon, a Navy establishment in Newfoundland, and some of those activities included something very rare, in my opinion.
The news article that accompanies the photo and caption provides more of the details:
Johnny Bauer's compassionate leave opened the door for Art Bradfield step on stage during "Up Spirits", an all-Navy revue, and Art had aces up his sleeve.
Art's vaudeville experience prior to the war did not let him down. He was soon playing to packed houses, and he is the first member of Combined Operations I have learned about that moved in the direction of entertaining wartime audiences during WWII. (Some of his other creative endeavours, e.g., poetry, will be listed on this site in the future. See "the arts of war" under the 'click on' headings in the right margin).
Though his adventures overseas during WWII are confined to just one paragraph in the news article presented here, its few sentences embody months of training aboard various landing crafts, participation in the Dieppe Raid, and heavy work loads associated with the subsequent invasions in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, where the early Canadian members of Combined Ops manned landing crafts amid - at times - the carnage and chaos of war.
From Mr. Bradfield's hand-written list of Navy vessels (13 are numbered below, but one is a land establishment) and land establishments (found together in his Navy Diary) and photographs and navy memoirs I have in my own collection, we can learn a bit more about Art's adventures during WWII.
Photo of one page in Mr. Bradfield's Navy Diary
Brief Details re LS. Art Bradfield's Initial Training
and Overseas Service, Jan. '42 - Dec. 1943
HMCS Star - Navy base in Hamilton, Ontario. Mr. Bradfield likely enlisted in the RCNVR there in the early summer of 1941 (when HMCS Star was still likely known as Hamilton 1st Division) and began basic training.
About basic training there my father writes the following:
Space at H.M.C.S. Star was not large enough for all-out training as H.M.C.S. Star is now. Rifle drill, route marches, frog-hopping up hills with 60 pound sacks on our back (frog-hopping is hopping in a squat position), and gunnery under the gunnery officer who always wears black garters. Everything is done on the double. It was a madhouse. They really toughened us up. Hold a Lee Enfield rifle (approximate weight - 12 to 14 pounds) in front of you in one hand and double change to the other hand, over your head, behind your back, then watch black garters walk away and forget all about you and you are still running.
Comedy too was all part of naval life. We had to scrub and wax and polish the ward room floor, and after waxing we put a rating in a clean pair of overalls onto the floor and dragged him by his arms and ankles to polish it. Needless to say, corners were tough on his head.
When eight weeks of training were over we were shipped to Halifax, but not before the 80 of us, led by our mascot (a huge Great Dane led by Scotty Wales, who was under punishment) and headed by a band, did a route march through Hamilton in early evening. We really were proud and put on a display of marching never seen before or since in Hamilton. Shoulders square, arms swinging shoulder high, thousands watched and we were roundly cheered and applauded. This was a proud moment long remembered, but soon we were bound for Halifax after a goodbye to Mum and family.
"Dad, Well Done" Page 4 - 5
"We were really proud and put on a display of marching never seen before
or since in Hamilton." Mr. Bradfield may be first on left. My father
is front row, 6th from the right. Photo Credit - Doug Harrison
HMCS Nelson and HMCS Stadacona - Bradfield is likely referring to Nelson barracks, in Halifax, on the navy base HMCS Stadacona. The old barracks building is now gone, but it was once home to the Effingham Division, of which Art was a member, beginning in August, 1941.
Many but not all members of the Effingham Division appear above, 1941.
Wellington or Nelson Barracks can be seen to the background, left. In the back
row, from L - R are Joe Spencer, Chuck Rose, Art Bradfield, Joe Watson...
HMS Queen of Bermuda, S.S. Volendam - Many members of the Effingham Division volunteered to join Combined Operations in the late fall of 1941 (they were the first Canadian division to do so, and a second draft volunteered shortly thereafter). The two drafts of sailors (about 100 in all, not including officers who also volunteered) boarded the Queen of Bermuda in Halifax, to go overseas, but the ship ran aground near Chebucto Head, outside Halifax, in a blinding snowstorm. They were rescued, given more leave, and once back to Halifax they boarded S.S. Volendam, a Dutch liner. They travelled in a convoy across the Atlantic Ocean and arrived in Scotland in late January 1942.
In Navy memoirs we read the following details that touch on the above ships:
Time passed quickly at Stadacona in Halifax and by this time nearly everyone had paired off in threes, buddies, or in naval language, ‘oppo.’
One day we heard a mess deck buzz or rumour that the navy was looking for volunteers for special duties overseas, with nine days leave thrown in. Many from the Effingham Division, including myself, once again volunteered. The buzz turned out to be true and we came home on leave, which involved three days coming home on a train, three days at home and three days on the train going back.
After returning from leave we were put aboard a large passenger liner, Queen of Bermuda, which went aground going astern as we left harbour and couldn’t be moved. We bailed water all night with pails - on a huge ship like that - like emptying a pail of sand one grain at a time. However, we were transferred to a Dutch ship called the Volendam, with a large number of Air Force men. This was to be an eventful trip....
The Dutch captain lined us all up and assured us we would arrive safely because the Volendam had already taken three torpedoes and lived to sail. This was very heartening news for those of us who had never been to sea except for a few hours in Halifax upon a mine-sweeper. Our first meal was sausage with lots of grease. Naturally, many were sick as it was very rough.
After some days we spotted a light on our port stern quarter one night. It was the light of the conning tower of a German submarine. How she failed to detect us, or the Firedrake detect it, I will never know. I was gun layer and nearly fell off the gun. I informed the Bridge and the Captain said, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. It could be one of ours.” But as it quickly submerged we did fire one round to buck up our courage.
Some days later we spotted a friendly flying Sunderland and shortly after sailed up the Firth of Clyde to disembark at the Canadian barracks called HMCS Niobe.
"Dad, Well Done" Pages 8 - 9
HMCS Niobe - a transit camp
or manning depot in Scotland and the Canadians were not there long after landing near Greenock. They were soon on a train bound for Hayling Island on the southern coast of England.
HMS Northney III, HMS Northney I - training camp to some degree, and the location where the Canadian sailors learned they would be manning landing crafts.
Doug Harrison writes:
We spent little time at Niobe but entrained for Havant (Hayling Island is just offshore of Havant) in southern England, to H.M.S. Northney 1, a barracks (formerly a summer resort) with a large building for eating and then cabins with four bedrooms. This was January, 1942 and there was no heat at all in the brick cabins. The toilets all froze and split. But we made out. Our eating quarters were heated.
L - R: Al Adlington, London; Joe Spencer, Toronto; Chuck Rose, Chippewa;
Doug Harrison, Norwich; Art Bradfield, Simcoe; Don Linder, Kitchener;
Joe Watson, Simcoe; Jake Jacobs, unknown. HMS Northney, 1942
Photo Credit - From the collection of Joe Spencer
We were issued brooms for guard duty in some cases at Northney, sometimes a rifle with no ammunition, and they were expecting a German invasion. Rounds were made every night outside by officers to see if we were alert and we would holler like Hell, “Who goes there? Advance and be recognized.” When you hollered loud enough you woke everyone in camp, so sentry duty was not so lonesome for a few minutes.
There was no training here... So, as the navy goes, we went back to Niobe on March 21, 1942.
"Dad, Well Done", Pages 11 - 12
About that same time period. Lloyd Evans (RCNVR, Combined Operations) writes:
After a few days at the Greenock base, we were posted to HMS Northney III on Hayling Island near Portsmouth on the south coast of England. The purpose was training and it was there that we discovered we had 'volunteered' to operate Landing Craft for future raids and landings under the auspices of Combined Operations.
While there, Portsmouth and Southampton came under heavy bombing raids, courtesy of the Luftwaffe. What an unforgettable sight it was, with ack-ack fire arcing upwards and bombs dropping. Large piles of timber, located in uninhabited places around the cities, were set alight during bombing raids. This was to confuse German bombers into thinking that the fires were part of the cities marked by their Pathfinders and to have them release their bombs where they would do little or no damage.
Some nights I stood guard duty at the end of a long pier, as lookout for German raiding parties. In the lonely darkness of the night, this inexperienced 18 year old discovered the power of the imagination! It seemed that the end of the watch would never come.... I was gaining a sense of the terrible nature of modern warfare, as I realised in my imaginings how easily they could be turned into brutal and bloody reality.
At the end of the training period, around February or March 1942, we returned to HMCS Niobe for a few weeks until our next training base was ready for us. In peacetime the building was an old insane asylum and a hospital.
Source - Landing Craft Operations @ Combined Operations Command
More to follow about Art Bradfield's training exercises and participation in the Dieppe raid and more.
Unattributed Photos GH
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