User:Bobbradburn

Major General David D. Bradburn USAF (Ret.) (1925-2008) was a pioneer in space surveillance systems.

General Bradburn was born in Hollywood, Calif., in 1925, and graduated from high school in South Pasadena, Calif., in 1942.

In 1943 he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and graduated in 1946 with a bachelor of science degree. In April 1951, General Bradburn attended Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind., where he received a master of science degree in engineering in 1952. He graduated with distinction from the Air War College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., in July 1966 and concurrently received a master of science degree in international affairs from The George Washington University.

After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy as a rated pilot, General Bradburn was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He completed P-51 fighter transition and AT-6 gunnery training at Williams Field, Ariz., in 1946.

His first operational assignment was to the 47th Bombardment Group, Biggs Field, Texas, where he flew B-26 aircraft from November 1946 until April 1948.

In May 1948 General Bradburn went to Japan, where he served as a fighter intercept controller with the 610th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron at Kyushu until July 1949. He then joined the 3d Bombardment Group at Yokota Air Base, and later at Iwakuni Air Base. He flew 50 combat missions in B-26s over North Korea as flight commander on daylight medium-level bombing, close-support and night-intruder missions.

In December 1952 General Bradburn was assigned as a staff officer, Headquarters Air Research and Development Command, Baltimore, Md., where he worked on aerial reconnaissance equipment (photo, radar) and ground radar (forerunner of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. He led the site selection team that picked Trinidad for the prototype BREWS radar.

In May 1957 General Bradburn was picked for assignment to the first U.S. Air Force satellite project office in Los Angeles, Calif. This began a series of assignments of increasing responsibility in the field of military applications of satellites.

In December 1960 he was assigned to the Directorate of Special Projects, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, also in Los Angeles, first as a staff officer and later as manager of a space satellite program.

In August 1966, after attending the Air War College and receiving his master of science degree at The George Washington University, General Bradburn returned to the Directorate of Special Projects, Los Angeles, where he remained until April 1971 as deputy director and manager of a group of military space programs.

From April 1971 until January 1973 he was assigned as director of the Office of Space Systems, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, Washington, D.C.

He returned to the Directorate of Special Projects again in January 1973, this time to serve as the director, with additional duty as deputy commander for satellite programs of the Space and Missile Systems Organization.

General Bradburn became vice commander of the Electronic Systems Division, Air Force Systems Command, at L.G. Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass. in August 1975 and retired from active duty in August, 1976 after 30 years in the military.

Personal Life

General Bradburn was born to Clarence Earl Bradburn and Florence Lyle Easton. Clarence Earl graduated from West Point in 1913 and served on the Western Front in WWI. Florence Lyle was the daughter of Edward D. Easton, founder of the Columbia Graphophone Company which later spawned the Dictaphone Corporation and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).

General Bradburn married Barbara Hurff in 1949 and has two daughters, Carol Navagato and Susan Inloes. After his marriage to Bertha Evelyn Stout in 1957 he had two sons, David Aragon and Robert Bradburn.

After his retirement from the Air Force in 1976, General Bradburn returned to Manhattan Beach, California and became Director of Engineering for TRW Space and Defense Systems. After retiring from TRW in 1986, he led a project with historian R. Cargill Hall to write a classified history of the Air Force's Special Projects Office and its cooperation with the NRO in developing the tools of Cold War reconnaissance, including the Corona Project.

From 1957 until 2003, Dave and Bertha were active members of the Manhattan Beach Community Church.

In 2003 Dave and Bertha moved to the Morningside retirement community in Fullerton, California.

He is a member of the Distinguished Flying Cross Society.

He is President Emeritus of the Beach Cities Symphony Society.

http://www.nro.gov/PressReleases/pioneer_fact_sheet.pdf http://www.dfcsociety.org/society.asp http://www.beachcitiessymphony.org/board.htm