Talk:John Braham (RAF officer)

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I have just read with great interest of the career of Wing Commander "Bob" Braham. I came to the site from the de Havilland Mosquito page.

I am the son of a long-time de Havilland employee from Hatfield, and later Downsview, Ontario, Canada, and also an employee for awhile myself. I am also a helicopter pilot from the Viet Nam era.

I am fascinated by the accomplishments of Wing Commander Braham.

However, I would like to point out a descrepancy in the bio. It states that Wing Commander Braham is the leading Allied Ace in WWII in twin-engine aircraft. I would beg to differ with that statement. From the list of Allied Aces of WWII, Major Richard Bong is the leading Ace with credit for 40 aircraft destroyed. He flew the P-38 Lightning. The second highest scoring Ace also flew the P-38 Lightning. They were far ahead of the nearest pilots of any single or multi-engine fighters.

Respectfully submitted,

MosquitoDH98 20:56, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

The RAF does not approve of the cult of the 'ace' -- a cult which among other things is what killed off the Luftwaffe, since a whole fighter group would do nothing but bodyguard its precious 'ace' pilot, for propaganda purposes, so that the Allied air forces shot down far more aircraft than their opponents -- but Bob Braham was probably the highest-scoring twin-engined Allied fighter pilot in Europe. It doesn't really matter what Bong and others did with the P-38 against inferior opposition at low level in warm weather in the Pacific. The P-38 was very little use in Europe because of its inherent icing / overheating problem at altitude, and even Robin Olds, a distinguished ace of the Second World War and the Vietnam War, didn't think much of it. Nor is it true that the top Pacific P-38 aces were 'far ahead' of anyone else. Johnnie Johnson, the leading RAF Spitfire ace, is credited with 34 destroyed and seven shared destroyed, plus probables. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:36, 27 July 2017 (UTC)