Braham military collection Peering Through Binoculars

Collection of military memorabilia belonging to Jewish serviceman Mark Braham.

Mark Braham was born in London in 1921. He was a student at Cambridge University in 1940, when he left to join a Young Soldiers’ battalion formed to prepare for an expected German invasion after Dunkirk.

Mark was commissioned to the Queen’s own Royal West Kent Regiment in September 1941. In 1942 he volunteered for attachment to the Indian Army. He was posted to the Indian Military Academy and then to the 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles (Frontier Force) and volunteered for the 153 Gurkha Parachute Battaltion in 1943. Mark was posted to a Gurkha battalion in Italy in January 1944 where he served throughout the Italian campaign with both the Gurkhas and West Kents until the German surrender. He was wounded in action twice suffering gunshot flesh wounds. In 1945 he was posted to Northern Ireland and then to the Parachute Regiment Infantry Training Centre. He was demobilised in July 1946.

The binoculars were in use one morning in the hills near Marradi, Italy. Mark describes how he was peering through the glasses when he was shot at by the Germans and could see the bullet coming at him. Fortunately it missed and only grazed his wrist, hitting his Bren gun instead. The binoculars, produced by German manufacturer Carl Zeiss, were purchased by the Commonwealth just before the outbreak of the war and issued to the soldiers.