Category:Ben Bradlee

Early Life
Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (26 Aug 1921 - ) was originally born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts but then shortly moved to Boston with his parents, who were Frederick Josiah Bradlee Jr. and Chevaliere Josephine de Gersdorff Bradlee. Ben Bradlee, as he is simply known, was one of three children and the second child born; his older brother was Frederick Josiah Bradlee III, who dropped the "k" from his first name and the "III" and the end of his last name; and his sister Constance "Conny" Bradlee, who was a model for Vogue Magazine. Bradlee is of Boson Brahmin descent; on his father's and mother's side of the family who were third cousins and shared the same Crowninshield ancestor who was Benjamin Williams Crowninshield, 5th United States Secretary of the Navy. On Bradlee's father's side he has lineal descent from the Putnam and the Crowninshield family, and from his mother's side, the Choate and Crowninshield family. Bradlee went to Havard as the Bradlee's have done for four generations, and graduated in three years so he could join the war, and got married to his first wife Jean Saltonstall, the same day he graduated.

World War II
Since Bradlee was an intelligence officer (CI Officers) he was on a total of nine different destroyers reporting information to the ships' captains. He fought in the Solomon Islands Campaign, the Philippines Campaign and the Mariana and Palau Islands Campaign and fought in a total of thirteen naval battles. He fought in the Solomon Islands Campaign: the 1st Battle of Tulagi, the Battle of Vella Lavella; the Guadalcanal Campaign: the Battle for Henderson Field, the Battle of Guadalcanal; the Philippines Campaign:the Battle of Leyte Gulf, (the world's largest naval battle in the history of mankind), the Battle of Mindoro, the Battle of Manila, the Battle of Surigao Straits, the Invasion of Lingayen Gulf; the Mariana and Palau Islands Campaign: the Battle of Saipan, the Battle of Tinian and the Second Battle of Guam.