F2 CLAUDE L. BRONNES, WWII: Went down with the Atlanta
Claude Lindley (Buddy) Bronnes is pictured in Navy uniform c. 1942 on the north side of Main Steet in Irvington between Dutcher and Eckar streets. He is standing in front of a United Cigar store that would later become Becker's Stationery and is now the site of Geordanes Neighborhood Market at 57 Main Street. The longtime Grand Union grocery store at 61 Main Street is largely obscured two doors east from the cigar store. That is now the site of La Chinita Poblana restaurant. (Photo courtesy Bronnes family via Ancestry.com)
The damage to the Atlanta was stark, forcing her captain to order her scuttled. Bronnes’ death was reported generically as occurring “somewhere in the Pacific," initially, but some clarification came when a crewmate from Tarrytown told friends Buddy Bronnes was last seen working in the engine room as the attack began and apparently never seen again.
As a qualified Navy firefighter, if Bronnes had not been killed directly, he likely would have been at the forefront of the cruiser’s fire suppression operation, the most dangerous position on the ship. It appears his body went down with the ship and remains entombed there today.
F2 Bronnes was was honored at a memorial service at the Irvington Presbyterian Church on Jan. 9, 1943 attended by Mayor Duncan G. Smith and the Board of Trustees as well as members of Veterans of Foreign Wars Irvington Post 2911.
He is enshrined at a memorial at Fort William McKinley in Manila, Philippines and is also remembered on a memorial at his mother’s family's burial plot at Sunset Memorial Park, Hoquiam, Wash.
Born on April 12, 1923 at Dobbs Ferry Hospital, Buddy, was an Irvington boy through and through, attending various public schools, though never completing high school. He grew up with younger brother Hugh, nicknamed Sonny, in a boarding house at 21 N. Buckhout St. (site of the Irvington Post Office today) just a couple blocks east of the Hudson River and the docks that serviced the ferry that crossed the river to Piermont on the western shore multiple times a day.
The boarding house was owned and operated by Buddy’s grandfather and grandmother Harry and Hannah Bronnes. Harry and Hannah were aged 57 and 59, respectively, when young Buddy was born to their second eldest son, Claude Dewey Bronnes, and his recent bride, the former Helene Maurine Lindley.
Harry, was a local politician, elected member of the Village of Irvington Board of Trustees. He and Hannah had emigrated to the U.S. in the late 1880s from Denmark and Sweden, respectively. Hannah continued to run the boarding house after Harry’s death in the 1930s and raised Buddy and Sonny alone after their father Claude's death in 1937.
A partisan politician with a sense of humor, Harry told the Irvington Gazette newspaper on news of Buddy Lindley’s birth, “It’s another Democrat.”
In 1923, Buddy’s mother and father had just arrived in Irvington and the Harry and Hannah Bronnes’ boarding house from their home of Burbank, California while Helene was pregnant with her first-born.
Eerily, the Bronnes family’s final Irvington address as an intact family in 1927 was 88 Main Street, once home to the first Irvington resident killed in World War I, U.S. Marine Corps Private Philip McGovern, who was killed on the Western Front in France in June 1918. The two neighboring houses — 84 and 86 Main, directly across from Irvington Town Hall — were also once home to active-duty service members who died. Navy Seaman 2nd Class Leigh Anderton died at Naval Air Station Norfolk, Va., during World War II. He once lived at 86 Main. Army Private Louis Kindervatter died in July 1918, a month after McGovern, also on the Western Front. He lived at 84 Main.
Helene, 3-year-old Buddy and 1-year-old Sonny left for Spokane in November 1927 to be with Helene’s father, Robert Walker (Bobby) Lindley, a former Irvington resident who was severely injured in an Arizona car crash the same month. The wreck, which occurred when the Lindleys were on a cross-country auto tour had killed Helene’s mother, the former Harriet Maude (Hattie) Breakiron, outright. Claude Dewey Bronnes joined the family in Spokane in December.
The light cruiser USS Atlanta is pictured underway at speed, likely at her trials c. November 1941. The namesake of the Atlanta-class light cruiser, eight of which were constructed before and during World War II, fought in the Battle of Midway, the Battle of the Eastern Solomon Islands and the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Construction of the warship began on April 22, 1940 at Kearny, N.J. She was christened by ship sponsor Margaret Mitchell and launched at Kearny on Sept. 6, 1941. She was commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on Dec. 24, 1941, 17 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japan. Mitchell was the author of the iconic novel “Gone With The Wind” and a native of Atlanta, Ga. She was hit by a drunken driver and killed in 1949. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain photo)
Claude and son Buddy returned to Irvington from Spokane in early 1928. Helene filed for divorce from Claude that year and it was finalized on May 24, 1929 with Claude gaining custody of Buddy and Helene keeping custody of Sonny. Helene sent Sonny East — by himself at age 6 — to live with his father in Irvington in May 1932. She either lost or relinquished custody. The elder Claude had battled health issues during his time as a Robinson chauffeur and suffered a recurrence in 1933 that left him hospitalized at Grasslands Medical Center in Valhalla for four years until his death at 39 in November 1937.
His death left Buddy and Sonny in the care of their Bronnes grandparents and finally just their grandmother until her death in 1939. Helene remarried in 1930, divorced, married a third time in 1940, divorced and married a fourth time in 1948. She was living in San Francisco at the time of Buddy's death in the Pacific and it was not she, but Claude’s paternal uncles in Irvington who were informed of his death.
She outlived all her exes, had no more children after Buddy and Sonny and died in Washington State in 1985 at age 82.
Links to similar personal stories about Irvington heroes who gave their lives for their country*
◼ Pfc. Cuthbert Powell Sinkking: Class of '42 gave 3 of its own to the ages
◼ Pfc. John Joseph (Joe) Gilchrist: Died after capture of Saint-Lo
◼ Lt. (j.g.) George Eddison Haines: Lost at sea, awarded Silver Star
◼ Pfc. Joseph Thomas Costello: Teen lost life in Battle of Mindanao
◼ MSgt. James Peter Kelley: Survived WW II and Korea; died in fall
◼ S1 Archibald Ronald: Lost on next-to-last Navy ship sunk by U-boat
◼ TSgt. Raffaele R. (Ralph) Reale: A hero's life ended on East Sunnyside Lane
◼ Sgt. Robert F. Morrison: Took fight to the enemy, fell in Alsace
◼ Lt. Col. George W. Beavers Jr.: Re-upped as private; died on war's eve
◼ F2 Claude L. Bronnes: Went down with the Atlanta at Guadalcanal
◼ MMLC William James Downey: Died aboard ship off West Coast
◼ Pvt. Alick Main Ian: Died taking Aachen, first German city to fall in WWII
◼ Pfc. George Mills Hill Jr.: Survived Okinawa, only to fall in South Korea
◼ Pvt. Peter R. Robinson: Lost to shadows of time over Pacific, answers never found
WORLD WAR I
* World War II deaths include soldiers who enlisted during the World War II era and died while still in uniform, either killed in combat, or died of accidental or other causes. Two of the World War II fallen served in both World War II and the Korean Conflict and are listed under World War II. One of those died in an accidental fall after surviving both wars, the other was killed in action in Korea after surviving World War II.World War I deaths also include battlefield deaths and accidental or illness-related deaths by service members still in uniform at the time of their passing.
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