Wilfred Bradley

HMS Cornwall

HMS Cornwall was a County-class heavy cruiser of the Kent sub-class built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1920s. The ship spent most of her pre-World War II career assigned to the China Station. Shortly after the war began in August 1939, she was assigned to search for German commerce raiders in the Indian Ocean. Cornwall was transferred to the South Atlantic in late 1939 where she escorted convoys before returning to the Indian Ocean in 1941.

She then sank the German auxiliary cruiser Pinguin in May. Cornwall rescued 3 officers, 57 ratings and 22 prisoners after the battle. After the start of the Pacific War in December 1941, she began escorting convoys until she was transferred to the Eastern Fleet in March 1942. On 5 April, as part of the engagement known as the Easter Sunday Raid, a wave of Aichi D3A dive bombers took off from three Japanese carriers to attack Cornwall and Dorsetshire, 320 kilometres (170 nmi; 200 mi) south-west of Sri Lanka, and sank the two ships.

British losses were 424 men killed (including Coder Wilfred Bradley from Beeston, Stoker Lionel Kelk from Langold and Ordnance Officer Arthur Steventon from Bobbers Mill, Nottingham). 1,122 survivors spent thirty hours in the water before being rescued by the light cruiser Enterprise and two destroyers. (Wikipedia)

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