John Braham
Title
John Braham
Description
Relating to Wing Commander John Braham with pictures of his wife, Joan and his father, Reverend Dr Ernest Braham. Reports of John leading night fighters and an operation with Flight Lieutenant Bill Gregory.
Language
Type
Format
Five newspaper cuttings in an album
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
PCrossK22010009, PCrossK22010010
Transcription
[photograph]
“DESTROYER” BRAHAM with his wife, formerly Miss Jean Hyde of Leicester. They have two sons.
[page break]
[photograph]
THE Rev. Dr. Ernest Braham, 52-year-old Vicar of Newtown, Hants, formerly Captain Pilot Braham, of the Royal Flying Corps, re-sews the wings and medals he wears on his tippet in church.
[page break]
Coventry blitz made Braham the ‘Night Destroyer’
MY SON – BY THE VICAR WHO FLEW
Express Staff Reporter
IN the study of a small vicarage at Newton [sic], Fareham, Hants, the Rev. Dr. Braham last night interrupted his writings on St. Augustine to re-sew the Royal Flying Corps wings and medal ribbons he wears over his surplice in church.
On the mantelpiece stood a photograph of his grandfather, Daniel Braham, a Sheffield engineer. Beside it was a photograph of the vicar’s son on the wing of a plane.
To this he pointed. He said, “I’ll tell you about John.”
This then is the story of Wing Commander John Randall Braham D.S.O. and bar. D.F.C. and two bars. Britain’s greatest night fighter pilot, the man they call “the destroyer,” yet the least-known of war aces – by the man who knows him best.
Wing-Commander Braham this week drew level with Cunningham’s score of 18 night kills – and then topped it by one.
Dr. Braham, once Captain Pilot Ernest Goodall Braham, lit his pipe and said:-
The Character of an Ace
I’m a working man’s son, Yorkshire stock, my boy. That’s the secret. John is 6ft. 1in. with strong blue eyes and fair hair. He looks striking enough and he’s as determined as he looks.
He came to me before the war and told me he wanted to join the Air Force.
“Why the Air Force? I asked.
“You went Dad.” he said.
I Remembered when I flew over France in the old Avros and Bristols and I said to him “That’s enough. That’s grand.” So he joined.
He’s a quiet sort of chap, clever, deeply religious. He loves reading history. Thucydides [Greek historian, born 460 B.C.] is his favourite author. He drinks no spirits, likes a pipe.
But he’s not soft. This will show you what he’s like. When he was at school he was challenged by a half- drunken navvy to a fight. He brought him to the vicarage and they fought in an attic.
When I went up to see what was happening I found blood all over the floor. John had broken the navvy’s nose and knocked him about badly. A week later they were going off to the cinema together.
He’s a splendid boxer and rugger player – sport is his favourite hobby.
The motive of an ace
All through the blitz John was fighting over the towns of Britain. It was Coventry that really made him angry.
He shot down two planes in that blitz and he came back determined to kill every German he could find. I agreed with him.
He’s only had one rest period since then, and he was as miserable as hell all through it.
Dr. Braham started putting on his vestments for evensong.
This is the astonishing thing about my son. He fights most of the night but by ten in the morning he’s at his desk dealing with the administrative work of his station. And he’s only 23. And he has a wife and two small children.
He passed me a hymn card.
I wrote this hymn and we often sing it here and it is sung in other churches, too.
This was the first verse:-
[italics] Give to our sons, O Lord, who rise on wings of flame.
Thy strength dark dangers to o’ercome.
To conquer in the name. [italics]
[page break]
WING COMMANDER AT 22
The night fighter squadron which helped to defend Glasgow in the blitz of May, 1941, and destroyed eight enemy bombers on two successive nights near the city, is now led by 22-year-old Wing-Commander J.R.D. Braham, D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar, who thus becomes one of the Fighter Command’s youngest wing-commanders, reaching that rank at the same age as “Paddy” Finucane.
One of the most experiences night fighter pilots in Britain, Wing-Commander Braham’s “bag” now totals 12 enemy bombers destroyed.
[page break]
RAF ‘ace twins’ do it again
Wing-Commander John Braham and Flight-Lieutenant Bill Gregory – the R.A.F’s “irresistible twins” of the night sky – have done it again.
Looking for trouble over Belgium on Tuesday night in their night intruder Beaufighter, they registered their fifteenth Luftwaffe victim – all destroyed at night.
They found a Messerschmitt between Liege and Antwerp and filled it with cannon shells and machine-gun bullets before cutting its tail off “to make quite sure.”
“DESTROYER” BRAHAM with his wife, formerly Miss Jean Hyde of Leicester. They have two sons.
[page break]
[photograph]
THE Rev. Dr. Ernest Braham, 52-year-old Vicar of Newtown, Hants, formerly Captain Pilot Braham, of the Royal Flying Corps, re-sews the wings and medals he wears on his tippet in church.
[page break]
Coventry blitz made Braham the ‘Night Destroyer’
MY SON – BY THE VICAR WHO FLEW
Express Staff Reporter
IN the study of a small vicarage at Newton [sic], Fareham, Hants, the Rev. Dr. Braham last night interrupted his writings on St. Augustine to re-sew the Royal Flying Corps wings and medal ribbons he wears over his surplice in church.
On the mantelpiece stood a photograph of his grandfather, Daniel Braham, a Sheffield engineer. Beside it was a photograph of the vicar’s son on the wing of a plane.
To this he pointed. He said, “I’ll tell you about John.”
This then is the story of Wing Commander John Randall Braham D.S.O. and bar. D.F.C. and two bars. Britain’s greatest night fighter pilot, the man they call “the destroyer,” yet the least-known of war aces – by the man who knows him best.
Wing-Commander Braham this week drew level with Cunningham’s score of 18 night kills – and then topped it by one.
Dr. Braham, once Captain Pilot Ernest Goodall Braham, lit his pipe and said:-
The Character of an Ace
I’m a working man’s son, Yorkshire stock, my boy. That’s the secret. John is 6ft. 1in. with strong blue eyes and fair hair. He looks striking enough and he’s as determined as he looks.
He came to me before the war and told me he wanted to join the Air Force.
“Why the Air Force? I asked.
“You went Dad.” he said.
I Remembered when I flew over France in the old Avros and Bristols and I said to him “That’s enough. That’s grand.” So he joined.
He’s a quiet sort of chap, clever, deeply religious. He loves reading history. Thucydides [Greek historian, born 460 B.C.] is his favourite author. He drinks no spirits, likes a pipe.
But he’s not soft. This will show you what he’s like. When he was at school he was challenged by a half- drunken navvy to a fight. He brought him to the vicarage and they fought in an attic.
When I went up to see what was happening I found blood all over the floor. John had broken the navvy’s nose and knocked him about badly. A week later they were going off to the cinema together.
He’s a splendid boxer and rugger player – sport is his favourite hobby.
The motive of an ace
All through the blitz John was fighting over the towns of Britain. It was Coventry that really made him angry.
He shot down two planes in that blitz and he came back determined to kill every German he could find. I agreed with him.
He’s only had one rest period since then, and he was as miserable as hell all through it.
Dr. Braham started putting on his vestments for evensong.
This is the astonishing thing about my son. He fights most of the night but by ten in the morning he’s at his desk dealing with the administrative work of his station. And he’s only 23. And he has a wife and two small children.
He passed me a hymn card.
I wrote this hymn and we often sing it here and it is sung in other churches, too.
This was the first verse:-
[italics] Give to our sons, O Lord, who rise on wings of flame.
Thy strength dark dangers to o’ercome.
To conquer in the name. [italics]
[page break]
WING COMMANDER AT 22
The night fighter squadron which helped to defend Glasgow in the blitz of May, 1941, and destroyed eight enemy bombers on two successive nights near the city, is now led by 22-year-old Wing-Commander J.R.D. Braham, D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar, who thus becomes one of the Fighter Command’s youngest wing-commanders, reaching that rank at the same age as “Paddy” Finucane.
One of the most experiences night fighter pilots in Britain, Wing-Commander Braham’s “bag” now totals 12 enemy bombers destroyed.
[page break]
RAF ‘ace twins’ do it again
Wing-Commander John Braham and Flight-Lieutenant Bill Gregory – the R.A.F’s “irresistible twins” of the night sky – have done it again.
Looking for trouble over Belgium on Tuesday night in their night intruder Beaufighter, they registered their fifteenth Luftwaffe victim – all destroyed at night.
They found a Messerschmitt between Liege and Antwerp and filled it with cannon shells and machine-gun bullets before cutting its tail off “to make quite sure.”
Collection
Citation
“John Braham,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 14, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/42124.