During World War I, Navy Capt. Willis Winter Bradley Jr. saved his fellow shipmates by making sure an explosion in the ship's gun emplacement didn't cause any further damage or threaten more lives. Bradley received the Medal of Honor for his brave actions and continued to serve for nearly 30 more years.
Bradley was born on June 28, 1884, in Ransomville, New York, to Sarah and Willis Bradley Sr. He had a brother named Harold who went on to serve in the Army.
Shortly after Bradley was born, his family moved to Milnor, North Dakota, then to the nearby town of Forman in 1891. Bradley attended public schools and went to Hamlin University in St. Paul, Minnesota, before venturing into public service as deputy registrant of deeds for the county where he grew up.
Bradley began his Navy career when he was appointed to the Naval Academy, graduating at the top of his class in 1906. About a year later, he married his girlfriend, Sue Worthington.
Bradley spent the first several years of his naval service on various ships before taking command of the USS Biddle and the Reserve Torpedo Group at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1912. By July 1913, he'd completed an ordnance course at the Naval Postgraduate School and received a Master of Science degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
When the U.S. joined World War I, Bradley received orders to serve aboard the USS Pittsburgh II, an armored cruiser.
On July 23, 1917, he was on the ship when some saluting cartridge cases that were being reloaded into the ship's aft casemate — its rear gun emplacement — accidentally exploded.
Bradley, a lieutenant at the time, was entering that space when he was blown backward by the explosion and briefly knocked unconscious. When he regained some of his senses, he crawled into the casemate to put out the fire, despite the considerable amount of powder surrounding him that could have detonated at any time. His heroic effort prevented further explosions.
In the months following the incident, Bradley was temporarily promoted to lieutenant commander, then commander. The promotion became permanent in the spring of 1922. Over the next several years, he served in various positions across the U.S., including as an ordnance inspector.
Roughly a decade after his onboard heroics, on May 1, 1928, Bradley received the Medal of Honor from President Calvin Coolidge during a White House ceremony that his father, wife and three of his four daughters were able to attend. One of those daughters, Sue Bradley, later married Navy Rear Adm. Bruce McCandless, a future World War II Medal of Honor recipient.
In June 1929, Bradley was selected to serve as the naval governor of Guam. One of his many accomplishments in that position was recommending that U.S. citizenship be granted by federal legislation to all native residents. Bradley was so well liked that, according to National Park Service history, Guam residents asked the secretary of the Navy to allow Bradley to represent them in the U.S. after his term as governor ended in May 1931.
When Bradley returned to the U.S., he was promoted and served a stint as the captain of the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard. He continued to serve through World War II, mostly as the commander of the Naval Inspection and Survey Board in Long Beach, California, where his family set up a permanent home for his retirement, which was announced in August 1946.
Bradley continued serving his country, this time through public service. In 1947, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from California. He served one term before losing his re-election campaign. He next served as the assistant to the president of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company from January 1949 until he was elected to the California Legislature in 1952.
According to Bradley's obituary in The Bismarck (North Dakota) Tribune, the retired captain suffered two heart attacks in 1953 but continued to work until he suffered a third that he didn't survive on Aug. 27, 1954. Congressional records show he suffered cardiac arrest during a legislative committee meeting in Santa Barbara, California, and died hours later.
Bradley is buried in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego. In his honor, the USS Bradley, a destroyer escort, was commissioned in 1965 and served the Navy through 1988.
This article is part of a weekly series called "Medal of Honor Monday," in which we highlight one of the more than 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients who have received the U.S. military's highest medal for valor.