Art ("Brad") Bradfield, Simcoe; RCNVR and Combined Ops
Photo as found in NFLD newspaper, 1944
Introduction:
Art "Brad" Bradfield volunteered for RCNVR in 1941 and served overseas with Combined Operations from Jan. 1942 - Dec. 1943. His training re the operation of landing crafts took place in southern England and various Combined Operations training establishments in north-west Scotland, and his first action was the Dieppe raid, August 19, 1942.
Bradfield returned on leave to Canada in December, 1943 and soon thereafter began service aboard destroyer HMCS Gatineau, re convoy duty in the Atlantic Ocean. Later he performed other duties in Newfoundland and in his spare time he took part in stage productions (very proficiently I will add) and wrote many poems, some definitely connected to the Navy. A few appear below.
Part of a news story from 'a Newfoundland port', 1944
Leading Seaman Bradfield is one of the Canadian sailors featured in a series on this website entitled "Six Canadian Sailors Make Headlines", so readers can learn more about his service during WWII, i.e., travels aboard several ships, placements at several land establishments in Canada and the United Kingdom, participation in significant actions or operations, e.g., Operation Torch - please click here.
One of 'Brads' poems - about Navy language, or common terms sailors used regularly - has already been featured on this site. More poetry, art pieces and songs, etc., from various sources will be featured here as 'the arts of war' are discovered, particularly those with some link to Canadians in Combined Operations.
The following poems are presented with the permission of Art's son, Jack Bradfield of Simcoe, Ontario.
Art's poems are preserved carefully in a neatly typed binder, a small booklet and upon loose leaf paper:
To the best of my knowledge, Art and mates from south-western Ontario were sent to No. 1 Combined Operations Training Camp (on Loch Fyne, 1-2 miles south of Inveraray, Scotland) in the spring of 1942. Lots of training took place on various kinds of landing craft, and during time off, Inveraray was no more than a 30-minute walk or 10-minute boat ride from barracks.
SCOTLAND
Mats of heather, mammoth rocks,
Rainy weather and lovely lochs,
Purple hills, lonely moors,
Busy Mills and open doors.
Shaggy sheep, little trains,
Chasms deep and shipyard cranes,
Tartans bright, tramping feet,
War-torn sight and cobbled street,
Pretty place, sturdy race - -
SCOTLAND!
Allied soldiers practice running off landing crafts, hitting the beach
on Loch Fyne, at HMS Quebec (No. 1 Combined Ops Camp).
Assault landing crafts manned by Canadians at times. IWM
For most of the Canadians in Combined Operations who trained at UK camps and were engaged in significant invasions, it would have been their first trip of great distance away from home. "Mail call" would have been of great importance.
After the invasion of North Africa (Operation Torch, beginning November 8, 1942), Canadian sailors were returned to Liverpool, England aboard the Reina Del Pacifico. My father writes:
Liverpool, such a friendly city, has welcomed sailors for centuries and we went ashore soon after our arrival to a seaman’s home, a large, warm, clean barrack-like building with good food, showers, and cots with white sheets and pillow cases. Heaven!
Soon mail arrived and I can still see myself and my friends discarding our boots and stretching out on the cots to read the latest from home. Everything went quiet until someone shouted, “Hey guys, get a load of this!”
“Pipe down!” The old familiar phrase. “Read it to us later!”
We shared our parcels with anyone who may have missed out and showed new photos all around. Although we had shore leave, many chose to stay where we were, get some rest, and write some letters home. "Dad, Well Done", page 91
About "Mail call" Art Bradfield writes the following:
A LETTER FROM HOME
It really cheers a chap no end,
To get a note from home,
It makes him feel he has one friend,
Wherever he may roam.
It may be just a page or two,
From one he holds most dear,
But even though they're miles apart,
He feels their presence near.
It adds to Life a lovely strand,
To hear from one he thinks is grand,
It lifts his spirits, dulls his care,
As his thoughts go soaring away out there.
He thinks of things he used to do,
And folks back there that he once knew,
It makes him feel he's doing right,
While carrying on the same old fight.
It makes his day seem all the brighter
Regardless of the sky,
It gives him better spirit,
And makes him want to try.
It does seem very strange to me,
But still I find it true - -
I have a different outlook,
Each time I hear from you.
Brad
The poster refers to an exploit credited to HMCS Oakville.
The art work is by Hubert Rogers. As found in
Ready, Aye, Ready by Jack MacBeth
Without speaking to the poet himself, there is no easy way to know if there was an exact moment that a poem - or idea for a piece - sprang to mind, or if lines of prose grew over a week or month of service in some theatre of war (e.g., July or September, 1943, Operation Husky and Baytown in the Mediterranean).
However, one is allowed to imagine various scenes the Canadians in Combined Ops found themselves in over a period of two years, before returning home. Dieppe was a tragedy, North Africa was 10 - 12 days of unending effort, Sicily was an intense 'danger zone' during the time the Luftwaffe appeared like clockwork over the heads of sailors in their small (and not well-armoured) landing crafts. Whatever the case, 'Brad' took some time to think about what it meant to be brave.
THE BRAVE
A brave man's not him, who when things look a bit grim,
Feels no fear at all in his frame,
But he is the lubber, with spine feeling like rubber,
That sticks and fights just the same.
He may wear a false front; 'cause he feels like a runt,
As he faces war's deadly red flame;
But he shoves out his chin as he's wading right in,
And he sticks, and he fights just the same.
I admire the duck with plenty of pluck,
Who thinks fighting is quite a good game.
But the ones that I toast, are those scared the most -
That stick and fight just the same.
Brad
Mr. Bradfield followed up his time handling landing crafts with other Canadians in Combined Operations during 1942 - 43 by participating in convoy runs in 1944 with other members of RCNVR aboard HMCS Gatineau, a former British destroyer:
The Gatineau
As found in Art's blue binder; circa 1944-45
I'll close this entry re five of 'Brad's' poems with excerpts from three paragraphs - from a text by veteran naval officer, Jack Macbeth, who tells part of "the proud story of what was once the fourth most powerful navy in the world."
Cobwebs, Rust and Silence
It takes longer to mantle a fleet
than to dismantle it.
No sooner had the shooting stopped
in Europe and the Pacific
than up went the "For Sale" signs
on many of Canada's shapely,
stripped-down heroines of the war at sea.
Cobwebs, rust and silence settled
over the shipyards that had delivered them.
By the end of 1946,
the RCN had fewer ships in commission
than had sailed to war seven years earlier...
In their euphoria, few old salts found time
to wonder about the fate of their former ships.
Had they done so, no doubt,
many would have wept.
To those who sail in them, ships assume
the characteristics and personalities of people.
They become ordinary and often ornery living creatures -
praised, cursed, pampered, loved, and hated
according to their mood and performance.
And no living creature should be subjected to
the abuse and humiliation visited upon so many
of His Majesty's late Canadian men-of-war.
HMCS Gatineau which, as the British destroyer Express,
had been one of the last ships to leave Dunkirk in 1940
and later picked up 1,000 survivors from the battleship
Prince of Wales off the coast of Malaya, was scuttled in 1948
to form part of a breakwater, at Royston Bay, British Columbia.
She was joined there by a half-dozen
skeletonized Canadian frigates...
By far the greater number of former RCN ships, however,
ultimately found their way to scrap heaps in faraway lands
such as Japan, Italy, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Turkey and Chile.
Some saw service in the navies of some of these nations
before being melted down to re-emerge as
automobile axles, bulldozers, or sewer pipes.
Page 152, Ready, Aye, Ready
Page 161, Ready, Aye, Ready
Please link to The Arts of War: Poetry to Recite (1)
Unattributed Photos GH
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