80 Years After He Died at Pearl Harbor, Braga Bridge's Namesake Remembered

From the December 6, 2021, WPRI Providence by Ted Nesi.

Tens of thousands of southern  New Englanders drive across the Braga Bridge each day, but do not know where the bridge got its name.

It was named after Navy Yeoman 2nd Class Charles M. Braga, Jr., a 22-year-old Fall River, Massachusetts, native who died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Braga, called "Charlie" by his friends, died when a 500-pound bomb hit his ship, the USS Pennsylvania while he was carrying messages.

The Braga Bridge was completed in 1966 after construction began in 1959, and was named after Charles M. Braga of Fall River, Massachusetts, who was killed at Pearl Harbor.

It is just over a mile long and carried I-195 over the Taunton River between Fall River and Somerset.