City farewells loyal WWII Digger
DAVID JAMES BRADLEY, 94 Printer, WWII gunner 27-01-25 — 03-01-20
ANZAC Day in Cairns won’t be the same this year with one of the city’s last remaining WWII Diggers gone.
Former Cairns Post printer and infantry gunner David Bradley was farewelled at Good Shepherd Anglican Church in Edge Hill on January 14 and buried at Martyn St Cemetery.
While Mr Bradley endured the horrors of war in Papua New Guinea and Borneo, he never let it impact on the family, says son Richard Bradley.
“Dad never got upset or lost his temper. He always stayed calm in any circumstance. I think a problem at home was nothing compared to the battlefield,” Richard said.
“No matter what his condition was, he still kept his strong sense of humour. He was still cracking jokes up until a few days before he passed away.”
Born in Victoria, Mr Bradley moved to Cairns at six months old. The third of seven children born to Ernest and Florence Bradley, he grew up in Draper St and attended Parramatta State Primary School.
At 13, he started working at F.R. Ireland as a message boy, roustabout and bowser boy, but at 16 took up a compositor and linotype apprenticeship at McDonald printers.
WWII was well entrenched by the time he enlisted at 18, eventually joining the 2/32nd Australian Infantry Battalion as a gunner in the jungles of PNG and Borneo.
“The temperature was 40 degrees, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and every afternoon at exactly 3pm it poured,” he told the Cairns Post in 2017.
“After about three days, your nerves are starting to get shattered. After the war it took years to recover.”
After his discharge in 1946, Mr Bradley returned to the printing trade and spent 35 years at the Cairns Post.
Richard Bradley said his dad never spoke of the war before his wife Esme died, but never forgot his fallen mates and paid tribute to them.
“Dad always attended the Anzac service in Cairns city.”
He and Esme had seven children. He is survived by six children, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.