Bradford Pascoe-Pearce

This story has several treads to it that came together today. The first thread started in 2011when I met Catherine and Bill Hindson when I returned Catherine's grandfather's WW1 medal to her. As a result of this connection Catherine referred her friend Mary K to me.
Some years ago Mary purchased a group of WWII medals from a op-shop. The medals were awarded to NX71989 LT Bradford Pascoe-Pearce. What I immediately noticed from the nominal roll was that Bradford died on 15 August 1945, just 3 weeks before the Japanese surrender. Bradford was a POW and died in Borneo. He is buried in the Labuan War Cemetery. Having discovered this information I worked out that Bradford was married in 1941, she and Bradford did not have any children. His widow remarried in 1952.
I then started looking at Bradford's siblings. The first was his brother Max. NX3928 Lance Sergeant Maxwell Pearce-Pascoe was a POW of the Germans and held in Stalag 383. He is one of 150 Australians to have died as a German POW. Maxwell is buried in the Durnbach War Cemetery having died on 15 March 1945. The photos below are of Maxwell's funeral.
There are several other notable members of the Pascoe-Pearce family. Bradford's father was Edward the Mayor of Parramatta. His brother Harcourt (Bill) was a Wallaby.
Following the family through the electoral rolls from 1900 to the 1950s was rather easy. Once I hit the sixties most of the clues dried up. I did find a reference that Bill had two daughters and luckily I could work out their married names from a death notice. Then there was a big gap in the records. Using one of the married surnames and two initials I came up with a phone number in the White Pages. To my surprise the address is about 20km from where I work.
Now the next thread. Catherine and Bill live 2 minutes drive from my office so this afternoon I collected the medals from her. Once I got home I rang the number I thought was a family member and sure enough I was soon speaking to Bradford's niece, Elizabeth. Hopefully, Elizabeth and I can meet soon and I'll be able to hand her Bradford's five medals.
Mary has really looked after this group. After she purchased them she had them mounted and also added a replica medal to replace the missing ASM 1939-45.
The returned medal tally is now 1529.

Bradford Pearce-Pearce and two of his medals

Photos of the burial of Maxwell Pascoe-Pearce