Fighter Pilots of the RAF 1939-1945 by Chaz Bowyer

Author:Chaz Bowyer [Bowyer, Chaz]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Leo Cooper
Published: 2000-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

John Braham

For most youngsters growing up in the 1930s who aimed to fly with the RAF, the ultimate dream was to become a fighter pilot; an ambition which perhaps inevitably included visions of emulating such men as Albert Ball, Jimmy McCudden, ‘Mick’ Mannock et al whose deeds during the (then) recent 1914–18 war had probably nurtured any such goal in the first place. Nevertheless, such a dream almost exclusively envisaged flying by day in a single-seat fighter aircraft, engaging enemy counterparts in single combat to the death. Few, if indeed any, such would-be aces even considered the prospect of becoming a night fighter pilot; understandably, because in those pre-World War Two years the RAF simply did not possess aircraft specifically designed for the night interceptor role. First-line RAF fighters had flown by night it is true, but more as an experimental venture rather than any regular or routine purpose. Only in mid-1939 did the RAF call for a batch of Blenheim IFs – Blenheim I bombers converted to ‘fighters’ by simply bolting on a four machine-gun pack under each aircraft’s bomb bay – to be fitted with the early form of AI (Airborne Interception) radar (then termed RDF for Radio Direction Finding) sets; the first deliveries of which went to No 25 Squadron on 31 July 1939. By 3 September 1939 a total of fifteen AI-fitted Blenheim IFs had been delivered to 25 Squadron, with six more arriving on the unit by the end of the same month.

As merely one of many hundreds of young men who joined the RAF in the late 1930s with the prime idea of becoming a fighter pilot, John Braham, to his personal dismay, found himself allotted to a night fighter unit after graduating from flying training school, and did his utmost to be posted away to a day fighter squadron, without success. Yet, paradoxically, his lengthy operational service on night fighters was to see him emerge from the war as the RAF’s most highly decorated fighter pilot, as well as the Service’s highest-scoring night fighter pilot. Born in Bath on 6 April 1920, the son of a vicar, John Robert Daniel Braham’s original ambition on leaving school in 1936 was to join the Colonial Police force, and with this in mind his first employment was as a junior clerk in the Wigan police offices. A year of shuffling paper as a police clerk proved too boring, and his thoughts turned to joining the Merchant Navy, only to meet strong disapproval from his father. Accordingly – in his own words, ‘For the hell of it’ – Braham decided in December 1937 to apply for a five-years’ Short Service Commission with the RAF.

Accepted provisionally for pilot training, Braham went to the civilian EFTS at Desford for ab initio instruction on De Havilland Tiger Moths, making his very first flight on 9 March 1938 in Tiger Moth G-ADPH. His progress was slow, taking fourteen hours’ dual instruction before being allowed to fly his first solo, but

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