Flight Lieutenant Gil Graham RIP

Kyt · Mar 5, 2009

Flight Lieutenant Gil Graham - Telegraph

Flight Lieutenant Gil Graham, who has died aged 91, was one of the RAF's most successful air gunners in the Mediterranean theatre, where his marksmanship accounted for a number of enemy aircraft, including a mammoth Messerschmitt Me 323 transport.

Having joined No 14 Squadron in Egypt, Sgt Graham was made the rear gunner in Wing Commander Dick Maydwell's Marauder crew. They flew many patrols over the Aegean Sea to attack shipping, frequently coming under attack from anti-aircraft fire and enemy fighters. Early in 1943 Maydwell's crew made an audacious daylight attack to drop mines in the Burgi Channel, north of Athens, a round trip of 1,650 miles.

On a second operation a month later the weather was appalling, and the mountains surrounding the narrow channel made conditions particularly hazardous. The crew managed to drop the mines from very low level – the splashes struck the underside of the aircraft. Intelligence later reported that two ships had been sunk and the channel blocked for a considerable time.

After the collapse of the Axis armies in North Africa, No 14 moved to Algeria. On June 10 1943 Maydwell's crew was flying at low level between Sicily and Pantelleria when Graham spotted a pair of Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters closing on them. Calling the pilot to take evasive action 100ft above the sea, Graham engaged the fighters with his guns. Unfortunately, at this stage the electrically-operated mid-upper turret failed – so Graham's tail guns were the Marauder's only defence.

Keeping his cool, he decided to allow the enemy fighters to close in so that he could be more certain of hitting them. This tactic paid off, and he was able to score hits on one of the aircraft, which left the scene trailing white smoke from its damaged engine. The second fighter also withdrew, leaving the crew to return to their base at Bone.

On July 15, during a reconnaissance in the Tyrrhenian Sea area, Graham and his fellow gunner shot down an Italian SM 82 transport aircraft that was forced to ditch in the sea; and during the Anzio landings they shot down a four-engine Junkers transport.

The Maydwell crew's most remarkable engagement, however, came on July 29 during a reconnaissance off the Italian coast near Leghorn. Nearing the northern tip of Corsica, they came upon an enormous aeroplane which the navigator described as resembling a "block of flats". It was a six-engine Me 323 transport aircraft, similar in size to a modern-day Boeing 747. Wary of the formidable defensive armament carried by the enemy aircraft, Maydwell manoeuvred his Marauder just ahead of the lumbering transport so that Graham could bring his guns to bear. This he did with great effectiveness, and the giant transport crashed on a Corsican beach. Graham was awarded an immediate DFM.

Miraculously, the German crew survived, and in 1984 Graham met his former adversary, the German pilot.

The son of a Cumbrian pig farmer, George Gilbert Graham was born on April 26 1917 and left school aged 14 to work as a post boy at the McVitie's factory in Carlisle. His hobbies included cycle racing, and he was the Cumberland/Westmorland cycling champion for four years. In 1938 he joined the Air Defence Corps, and when the war broke out he was selected for pilot training. A severe head injury – caused when a bomb blew him down the concrete steps of a shelter – prevented him from continuing, and he volunteered for air gunner duties.

After leaving No 14 in 1943, Graham was commissioned and posted to No 614 Squadron as Gunnery Leader. The squadron, based in Italy, operated Halifax and Liberator bombers as Pathfinders over Romania and the Balkans. Graham survived many close shaves in this role – on one occasion the earpiece of his flying helmet was shot away and his Liberator sustained 166 holes; on another, this time in a Halifax, his parachute harness was severed by enemy fire. But he came through the war unscathed.

After the war Graham decided to remain in the RAF. He transferred to the administrative branch and spent much of the rest of his career in recruiting and training. During a posting to the Southern Rhodesian Air Force he took up ballroom dancing and became the Rhodesian amateur champion in 1948-49. A formidable hockey player, he represented three different RAF Commands and two counties at the sport between 1946 and 1959.

He also participated as a driver in a number of international motor rallies between 1958 and 1965. In the mid-1960s a posting to the staging post at Gan in the Indian Ocean brought him the opportunity to be a disc-jockey on the local radio station, a hobby to which he returned in the mid-1980s with Radio Carlisle.

On leaving the RAF in 1971, Graham joined Northern Gas as a draughtsman. Active well into his eighties, he fell off a ladder while pruning a tree when he was 87 and broke his leg; he still made sure that he had put the ladder away properly before calling an ambulance.

Gil Graham died on February 7. He married his wife Mary in 1939, but the couple split up after the war. She and their two daughters survive him.
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Antipodean Andy · Mar 5, 2009

Another 205 Group, and more specifically 614 Sqn, alumni. RIP.

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Flight Lieutenant Gil Graham RIP

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