textbraffordcliffordmilton1933.html

North High School Wall of Honor
Clifford Milton Brafford
Class of January, 1933

Research done by Claradell Shedd, Class of 1953. PAGE IN PROGRESS

Clifford Milton Brafford

Cliff graduated from North High School in January, 1933. His service number was 860-62-41. Cliff's next of kin was listed as Mr. Ed Brafford, 1601 21st Street, Des Moines, IA.

Clifford Milton Brafford

Year		Rank		Status

January, 1933		Graduated		Graduated from North High School, Des Moines, IA.
June 5, 1937	x	Family	x	Married Mary Charlene Mulstay at St. John's Church in Des Moines
1940	x	Family	x	1940 Census shows residence at 1543 19th Street in Des Moines
May 12, 1944	x	US Navy	x	Enlisted in US Navy. Boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, IL
1944	x	US Navy	x	US Navy, United States Atlantic Fleet Amphibious Force, US Naval Amphibious Training Base, Fort Pierce, FL
December 1, 1944	x	US Navy	x	Departed US via USS LCS (L) (3) #40. LCS=Landing Craft Support. Pacific Area. Served aboard the LCS (L) -40 per John Brafford, 01;06/13.
November 10, 1945	x	US Navy	x	Returned to US
November 18, 1945	x	US Navy	x	Discharged
1949	x	Family	x	WWII Serv ice Paperwork shows residence at 1543 19th Street in Des Moines
abt 1945?	x	Family	x	Married to Barbara Jean Landwehr Black, NHS, Class of June, 1942
1945-1977	x	Employment	x	Firestone Tire and Rubber. 32 years
1977-	x	Employment	x	Owned/operated Cliff's Hamburger House (Drake University area)
1977-	x	Employment	x	Dad's Old Fashioned Lemonaid at the Des Moines Fairgrounds
1977-2013	x	Retired	x	Retired and living in Des Moines, IA
01/06/13	x	Deceased	x	Des Moines, IA 50314. Highland Memory Gardens

Below is for formatting only....US Seabees
The Seabees, or SeaBees, are the Construction Battalions (CBs) of the United States Navy. The Seabees have a history of building bases, bulldozing and paving thousands of miles of roadway and airstrips, and accomplishing myriad other construction projects in a wide variety of military theatres dating back to World War II. The original Naval Construction Battalion 121, commissioned during World War II, served closely with the U. S. Marine Corps. It even received a designation as the Third Battalion, 20th Marines, Fourth Marine Division. While waiting for the Fourth Marine Division to be formed, these Seabees constructed facilities at Camp Pendleton, California.
When deployed to the South Pacific in early 1944, the battalion served in the Marshall Islands in support of the Marines, and then island-hopped, eventually arriving at Saipan and its neighbor, Tinian. At Saipan, captured enemy airfields were repaired, while heavy fighting was still underway. After landing in Tinian, the battalion installed landing ramps, helped build 8500-foot runways for B-29 bombers, built control towers, taxiways, hard stands, fuel pipelines, and a tank farm. The Presidential Unit Citation was awarded for its part in the assaults on the two islands. At the end of World War II the battalion was decommissioned.

LCS (L)-40

LCS(L)(3)-1 Class Landing Craft Support (Large)(Mark3): Laid down 16 September 1944 at Commercial Iron Works, Portland Oregon; Launched 7 October 1944; Commissioned USS LCS(L)(3)-40, 20 October 1944; Decommissioned (date unknown); Struck from the Naval Register (date unknown); Final Disposition, sold to A.B. Anderson, Seattle Wash, 9 October 1947, fate unknown. From Navy files: LCS(L) 40 Commercial IW Portland OR 44 20-Oct-44 Scrapped 1947 Photo and data: http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/05/050040.htm General Info: A total of 130 Landing Craft, Support (Large), or LCS(L)s, were built in WWII, by 3 shipyards. The basic design was 158 feet in length overall and 250 tons light in displacement. The history of this class and of the individual ships is excellently told in "Mighty Midgets at War", by Robin L. Rielly, published by Hellgate Press and available on amazon.com
http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/05/050040.htm


		left: Special Warfare Command Fort Pierce, FL

Clifford Milton Brafford; Highland Memory Gardens, Des Moines, IA

Clifford Milton Brafford coming: Watertender 3rd Class/WT3C? US Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 121? United States Navy
	Photo of Clifford Milton Brafford in uniform Correct badges/patches coming
(Get correct list of medals) Victory Medal

References

(1) Information was obtained from the Records on Military Personnel Who Died, were Missing in Action, or Prisoners of War as a result of the Vietnam War. This document can be found online at the National Archives and Records Administration at http://www.archives.gov/.

(2) The comprehensive list of names from North High's 1893-2018 graduation classes are from Claradell Shedd's North Des Moines High School website. The names of North High School graduates can be found online at: http://www.ndmhs.com/. Clifford Milton Brafford's 1933 class page is: http://www.ndmhs.com/pages/yearclass1933(1993.60).html.

01/06/13. Died in Des Moines, IA; 01/06/13. Obituary: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/desmoinesregister/obituary.aspx?n=clifford-milton-brafford&pid=162148081#fbLoggedOut

Music: "Anchors Aweigh"