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.
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. 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 the Navy had been allowed to begin training its own aircrew before the war began. The RAF also provided the aircraft and crews that worked in close support roles to the Army, notably the AOP pilots. These were pilots of light aircraft, such as the Auster, who acted as artillery spotters, directing the fire of the guns of the Royal Artillery from the air. Having had poor success at training RAF pilots to direct artillery fire, it was decided to train Army officers who were proficient at the task to pilot aeroplanes. This preceded the recreation of a new air wing within the British Army, the Army Air Corps. Then Second Lieutenants Gorham and Hugh Gregg relinquished their BMA commissions on 27 June, 1942, on departing Bermuda for England, where they received Regular Army emergency commissions into the Royal Artillery on 8 July, 1942. Trained by the RAF, they served in squadrons controlled by the RAF. Gorham served in North Africa and Italy. In Italy, while in command of B Flight of 655 Squadron, he played the decisive role in the Battle of Monte Cassino when he spotted a German division moving in half-tracked German Armoured Personnel Carriers to counter attack the British 5th Division and the Polish Corps, which were themselves attacking the German-occupied monastery. Contacting the senior Royal Artillery fire control officer on the ground. All two-thousand field guns within range were switched from their local targets and placed under his control. Gorham directed their fire down onto the German Division. The guns fired for hours, with Gorham taking turns with other AOP pilots. The German division was completely destroyed, and the Allied ground forces broke through four days later. For this action, Gorham received the Distinguished Flying Cross, a relative rarity for an Army officer.
Post-war service
Gorham relinquished his commission as a War Substantive Lieutenant on 13 June 1946, when he was appointed an Honorary Captain. Returning to Bermuda, he found the BMA and the BVRC had been reduced to skeleton commands and the BVE and BMI disbanded in 1946, along with the Home Guard. The BMA and BVRC would both maintain skeleton command structures till their strengths were built back up again in 1951. Gorham entered the BVRC, renamed the Bermuda Rifles, in which he served for a number of years as Second-in-Command. He was intended to replace Lieutenant-Colonel J.C. Astwood as Commanding Officer in 1954, but was unable to do so due to illness. Major HRG Evans instead took command. Gorham was part of the detachment sent to London for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, departing from Bermuda aboard on the 30 April. He retired from the army with the substantive rank of Captain, however he was awarded the Honorary rank of Colonel in the Royal Artillery.
