Ben Bradford
| Date and Place of Birth: | March 24 1893 Wayne, ME |
| Date and Place of Death: | August 6, 1918 Tours, France |
| Baseball Experience: | College |
| Position: | Catcher |
| Rank: | First Lieutenant |
| Military Unit: | 2nd Aviation Instruction Center US Army Air Service |
| Area Served: | France |
Benjamin P. Bradford was born in Wayne, Maine on March 24, 1893. He
graduated from Kents Hill prep school (Kents Hill, ME) in 1912 and
attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he played football,
hockey and captained the baseball team his senior year. He also played
for the Winthrop (Maine) town team, helping them clinch the Kennebec
Trolley League title in 1916. That year, Bradford led the league in home
runs.
Bradford graduated from Bowdoin in 1917. He was living in Boston when he
entered military service in May 1917 at the Officer Candidate School at
Plattsburg, New York. After graduating as a lieutenant he took a course
in military aeronautics at the Massachusetts School of Technology, being
one of six whose high rank enabled them to finish the course with the US
Army Air Service in France.
He went overseas in October 1917, and made several successful bombing
raids behind enemy lines. By the summer of 1918, 1/Lt. Bradford was an
instructor at the 2nd Aviation Instruction Center at Tours, France, the
principal basic training airfield for both observers and observation
pilots.
On August 6, 1918, Bradford was test flying a new bomber that went into
a nose spin. He was unable to regain control before the biplane crashed
into the ground.
Ben Bradford is buried at Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in
Fere-en-Tardenois, Picardie, France.
The 1916 Kennebec Trolley League champions,
Winthrop.
Ben Bradford is back row, third from left.
Source
Daily Kennebec Journal, May 1, 1916
Boston Sunday Globe, September 17, 1916
Boston Globe, September 22, 1918
Lowell Sun, September 24, 1918
Daily Kennebec Journal, September 29, 1918
Date Added September 7, 2013
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