Colonel Sir Richard Masters Gorham KB, CBE, DFC, JP (3 October 1917 – 8 July 2006) was a prominent Bermudian parliamentarian, businessman and philanthropist, who served as a pilot during the Second World War when he played a decisive role in the Battle of Monte Cassino, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. Second World War Bermuda Volunteer Engineers Born in Pembroke, Bermuda, the son of Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Gorham, he enlisted in the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers in 1938. The unit was mobilised, along with the other part-time units of the Bermuda Garrison (the Bermuda Militia Artillery (BMA), Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC), and the Bermuda Militia Infantry), when the Second World War was declared. As a corporal, he was attached to the signalling division at the Royal Naval Dockyard and earned a commission as a result of his saving an exercise when he suggested an emergency method of signalling visually to replace a broken wireless transmitter. Bermuda Militia Artillery Gorham was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Bermua Militia Artillery on 20 December 1940, to replace Second Lieutenant Francis J. Gosling, who had trained as a pilot at the Bermuda Flying School and was to depart for the United Kingdom in January for transfer to the Royal Air Force. Gorham would serve only briefly with the unit before following Gosling across the Atlantic. He learnt of an instruction from the Army Council that prevented commanding officers from barring officers under their command from taking any training course for which they volunteered (although his former BVE commanding officer, Major Cecil Montgomery-Moore, DFC – having transferred from the BVRC in France to the Royal Flying Corps when he had been commissioned during the First World War, and heading the Bermuda Flying School during the Second World War – must undoubtedly have approved of what Gorham intended). Royal Artillery and Royal Air Force At the time, the Royal Air Force was having great difficulty in providing effective Air Observation Post pilots to the British Army. In 1918, the British Army lost its air wing when the Royal Flying Corps was merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to create the independent Royal Air Force (RAF). Since then, the RAF had jealously guarded its monopoly on British military and naval aviation. They provided the Royal Navy with RAF aircrew and support personnel to operate the aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm, although