Air Vice Marshal HR Graham

Hindsight and History

The estimated 20 000 aircraft produced in 1941 was based on the principle of two bombers for a fighter. The four- engine Short Stirling and Handley-Page Halifax bombers entered operational service. No 7 Squadron, the first to be equipped with Stirling’s was commanded by a South African, Wing Commander (later Air Vice Marshal) HR Graham but the RAF bombers were at that stage no match for the Luftwaffe JU88’s, Do17’s and He 111’s.

Links of Long Standing

St Andrews College and Cambridge educated HP Fraser joined the RAF in 1929, St John’s College educated DG Morris and GF Skelton who was educated at Parktown Boys High joined in 1930, HR Graham the first “General Botha” graduate joined in 1931 and attained “Air Officer” rank but did not attend RAF Cranwell.

The Airmen who started at Sea

Born in 1910, Henry Rudolph Graham, the first former “General Botha” Cadet to become an RAF pilot was 15 years old when left Rondebosch Boys High in Cape Town in 1925 and became year- old Cadet No 202 a year after AG “Sailor” Malan. He joined the RAF in 1931 after several years at sea with the Union Castle Line, commanded the first four- engine bomber squadron in 1941 but would not have foreseen their paths crossing at RAF Fighter Command Headquarters 16 years after their “General Botha” training.

The Airmen who started at Sea

Awarded the “Distinguished Service Order” in August 1941, Wing Commander Graham’s January 1942 “Distinguished Flying Cross” followed an attack on the warships “Gneisenau” and “Scharnhorst” two months before their “Channel Dash”. Air Vice- Marshal HR Graham CB CBE DSO DFC retired in 1962 and died in South Africa in 1987.