He grew up at a farm in Utskarpen in Rana, and took his military education in Harstad at the Norwegian 6th Division Under-Officers' Training School. He was of sergeant rank when Norway was invaded by Germany on 9 April 1940. His garrison was ordered to fight with the outbreak of the Narvik campaign. Bratland first fought in the Battle of Gratangen. In the next month he was stationed in Bodø, where he was wounded during a German air attack. He fled to England via Sweden in 1942, and was subsequently commissioned into the British Army, in the 4th Battalion of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry. He would serve in Normandy, landing on 13 June 1944. He was injured in the Battle for Caen, but quickly returned to the field. On 22 September 1944, during the crossing of key canals in the Netherlands, Bratland led a platoon attack near Asten, for which he was awarded the Military Cross. When approaching Germany, he headed a company. However he was gravely injured on 5 April 1945, and remained hospitalized until the war's end. Bratland was also awarded the St. Olav's Medal With Oak Branch and the Defence Medal as well as the British War Medal 1939–1945 and Defence Medal. He was appointed Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1980.