Air Vice-Marshal James E ‘Johnnie’ JOHNSON CB CBE DSO** DFC* (c.38+ e/a)
Royal Air Force
9 March 1915 – 30 January 2001
“the real Top Gun: the RAF’s top scoring fighter pilot”
38 e/a. 700 operational 1941-1944 sorties: 19, 6!6, OC 616, Wg Ldr Kenley & 127, 125 & 124 Wing top fighter commander. Representing SPITFIRE Squadrons & signed in memory of Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader CBE DSO* DFC* 23, 19, 222, 0C242
The RAF’s top scoring fighter pilot flying in north west Europe, Wing Commander Johnny Johnson, seen with his pet Labrador dog ‘Sally’. He recorded 38 victories, though at the time of the photograph his total was 35. He commanded No 127 Wing composed of three Canadian Spitfire squadrons. The decorations on his tunic are a DSO with two Bars and a DFC with one Bar.
Air Vice-Marshal James Edgar ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, a policeman’s son from Leicestershire, was the ultimate Boys’ Own Paper character: the RAF’s top-scoring fighter pilot and wing leader par excellence of the Second World War.
It was when growing up in the 1960s that I first heard of Johnnie. Airfix produced a 1/72 scale plastic model of his famous Spitfire Mk IX, EN398, which Johnnie flew whilst leading the Canadian fighter wing at Kenley in 1943, the aircraft bearing the Wing Leader’s initials, ‘JEJ’, on the fuselage, along with a maple leaf motif. I made the model many times as a schoolboy. Years later, with my aviation historical research and writing at full throttle, I met the man himself: immensely charismatic and gregarious, Johnnie loved the company of his wartime pals and like-minded enthusiasts. We hit it off immediately. Throughout the happy years ahead, we spent hours in each other’s company, at events, book-signings, lectures, and – best of all – sitting in ‘Greycap Leader’s conservatory man cave, brimming with his personal memorabilia, just the two of us, talking about the war, Johnnie’s experiences, and recording these conversations.
Artwork by Roy Cross from the Airfix model of Wing Commander Johnnie Johnson’s Spitfire – which inspired a generation of schoolboys!
A couple of years after I wrote Bader’s Tangmere Spitfires (Haynes, 1996), I persuaded Johnnie to cooperate with me to produce Johnnie’s Kenley Spitfires. I began tracing and corresponding with his Canadian pilots, and putting the project’s framework together, but sadly Johnnie became ill and largely withdrew from public life. On 30 January 2001, aged eighty-five, ‘Greycap’ left us for blue skies. Johnnie’s passing left a huge hole in my life, an unfillable void.
Wing Commander Johnnie Johnson – ‘Greycap Leader’ – had the gift of leadership, a real ‘people person’, and always paid due acknowledgement to the supporting groundcrews. Johnnie is pictured here at Kenley in 1943, when leading the Canadian Wing, with two of his ‘erks’.
‘One of our pilots is missing’… Wing Commander Johnson, centre, and friends anxiously await news of an overdue Spitfire pilot at Kenley in 1943. The ‘Canada’ shoulder flashes were a gift from his Canadian pilots.
Instead of our original plan, I later decided to cover Johnnie’s story in three volumes, the Spitfire Top Gun series (Part One: Ramrod Publications, 2002, Part Two: Victory Books, 2005), but never got around to writing the third and final instalment. Instead, I wrote Spitfire Ace of Aces, being the full account (Amberley Publishing, 2011). For a variety of reasons I was never entirely happy with any of those books, which were all produced during what was a difficult period of my own life. All these years later, I have at last been able to do the job properly – and do Johnnie justice – thanks to Johnnie’s youngest son, my very good friend Chris Johnson.
Happy days: an exuberant Johnnie at St Croix-sur-Mer, his Spitfires having been the first to land in Normandy following D-Day.
Unhappy days: at St Croix, grounded owing to lack of fuel.
Firstly, Chris gave me permission to edit, contextualise and publish his august father’s 1942 diary – which not even I had ever seen. 1942 is, in fact, a very interesting year in the air war over northern Europe, what with the FW190’s superiority over the Spitfire Mk V, the ‘Channel Dash’, the disastrous Dieppe landings and the Americans making their first daylight raids on German targets in France – highlighting the lack of a suitable long-range Allied escort fighter. In this diary, though, we get a glimpse of the real Johnnie, a remarkable document on both an historical and human level. This book, Johnnie Johnson’s 1942 Diary: The War Diary of the Spitfire Ace of Aces, will be released by Pen & Sword in October 2020.
Johnnie and his Labrador, Sally, in Normandy.
Johnnie recreates the famous photograph at Duxford in 1996.
Secondly, Chris also gave me Johnnie’s unpublished last look back, The Great Adventure, in which ‘Greycap’ recounts his adventures between D-Day and the war’s end – with a little reflective comment at the end. Johnnie was actually a gifted writer and a highly intelligent, well-read, individual. Indeed, his wartime memoir Wing Leader, published in 1956, remains well-read even today – and contains some stunning descriptive passages of flying and fighting in the iconic Spitfire. So, again with edits and context from me, Johnnie Johnson’s Great Adventure: The Spitfire Ace of Ace’s Last Look Back will be released by Pen & Sword in November 2020.
Johnnie with his beloved Sally in Normandy.
Air Vice-Marshal Johnnie Johnson at the spectacular launch of Dilip Sarkar’s Bader’s Tangmere Spitfires at Worcester Guildhall, October 1996.
Finally, Chris also encouraged me to publish Johnnie’s personal photographs, which represent a truly illuminating pictorial window on the great man’s war. So, having edited and written captions to over 300 pictures, Spitfire Ace of Aces: The Album – The Photographs of Johnnie Johnson, will be published by Pen & Sword in March 2021.
Dilip Sarkar with Johnnie’s youngest son, Chris Johnson, at one of the author’s Duxford lectures in 2019.
Today, I am happy that I have been able to do Johnnie’s memory justice, thanks to Chris, and these new books will give his name and story currency once more.
Johnnie Johnson the trout fisherman – whose only memorial is a bench inscribed ‘In Memory of a Fisherman’ at his favourite fishing spot. RIP, ‘Greycap Leader’.
Although we held an impressive and moving memorial service for Johnnie at the ‘RAF Church’ of St Clement Danes in London’s Strand on 25 April 2001, the only memorial to this giant of a man, a leader of true natural genius, is a bench at his favourite trout fishing spot on the Derbyshire Wye, where his ashes were scattered. The bench’s plaque reads, quite simply ‘In Memory of a Fisherman’. In so many ways, that is just so…. Johnnie. RIP Greycap Leader.
Courtesy of, and with thanks to, AVIATIONDILIP SARKAR MBE. (Dilip Sarkar MBE FRHistS) Watch a This Is Your Life episode here featuring Johnnie Johnson’s life, including appearances from many wartime fighter aces here. Dilip Sarkar’s website.
Preorder your copy of Johnnie Johnson’s Great Adventurehere.
Johnson climbs out of the cockpit before waiting media, RAF Kings Cliffe, 1941
“In 1940 Johnson had an operation to reset his collarbone, and began flying regularly. He took part in the offensive sweeps over German-occupied Europe from 1941 to 1944, almost without rest. Johnson was involved in heavy aerial fighting during this period. His combat tour included participation in the Dieppe Raid, Combined Bomber Offensive, Battle of Normandy, Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge and the Western Allied invasion of Germany. Johnson progressed to the rank of group captain by the end of the war.
Johnnie Johnson by Olive Snell (February 1943)
Artist Olive Snell‘s two paintings “Comrades in Arms” of 610 Squadron pilots can be seen at Goodwood. This sheet shows Johnnie Johnson in the centre, surrounded by Polish Charlie aka Sgt Karol Michalkiewicz; Stewie (Andrew Stewart Barrie), Doug (F/Lt Douglas Owen Collinge, DFC), Feathers Sq/L WA Laurie, DFC), Arnt (2nd Lt Arnt Hvinden, a Norwegian), South (P/O Southwell C Creagh, an Australian), Gerry (Dutch pilot Lt. Gerry Volkhersz) and Sammy (F/O George Samuel Malton, a Canadian). Stewie, Doug and Sammy were shot down and killed within a few months.
Johnson was credited with 34 individual victories over enemy aircraft, as well as seven shared victories, three shared probable, 10 damaged, three shared damaged and one destroyed on the ground. Johnson flew 700 operational sorties and engaged enemy aircraft on 57 occasions.[10] Included in his list of individual victories were 14 Messerschmitt Bf 109s and 20 Focke-Wulf Fw 190s [a.k.a. ‘The Butcher Bird’] destroyed making him the most successful RAF ace against the Fw 190. This score made him the highest scoring Western Alliedfighter ace against the German Luftwaffe.
…Johnson flew various operations over France including the Rhubarb ground attack missions which Johnson hated—he considered it a waste of pilots. Several successful fighter pilots had been lost this way. Flight LieutenantEric Lock and Wing Commander Paddy Finucane were killed on Rhubarb operations in August 1941 and July 1942 respectively. Squadron leader Robert Stanford Tuck [Signatory #9] would be captured carrying out a similar operation in January 1942. During this time, Dundas and other pilots also expressed dissatisfaction with the formation tactics being used in the wing. After a long conversation into the early hours, Bader accepted the suggestions by his senior pilots and agreed to the use of more flexible tactics to lessen the chances of being taken by surprise. The tactical changes involved operating overlapping line abreast formations similar to the German Finger-four formation. The tactics were used thereafter by all RAF pilots in the Wing.
Erich Borounik’s Fw 190 under fire from Johnson, 23 August 1943. Borounik was Johnson’s 19th victory.
[A small extract from the deeply researched Wikipedia page. NB Flt. Lt. Alan Pollock is a longstanding supporter of Wikipedia, in recognition of their excellence as a resource for all, and encourages others to do so.]
Obituary courtesy of the Daily Telegraph: “AIR VICE-MARSHAL J E “JOHNNIE” JOHNSON, who has died aged 85, was the top-scoring RAF fighter pilot of the Second World War; his dash, courage and flying skills were outstanding.
Johnson accounted for at least 38 enemy aircraft over Britain and occupied Europe, yet his actual score was almost certainly higher. Of the many enemy aircraft he shot down, he waived shared credits to boost the scores – and the confidence – of younger pilots.
He earned an appropriately impressive collection of decorations, including a DSO and two Bars and a DFC and Bar. This recognition contrasted starkly with the RAF’s refusal before the war to approve his application to join an Auxiliary Air Force (AuxAF) squadron, or to serve in the RAF Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR).
It was only after Johnson had enlisted in the Leicestershire Yeomanry, TA, that the RAFVR reviewed his application and accepted him for pilot training. But for the delay, Johnson might well have been ready for action at the beginning of the Battle of Britain on July 10 1940. As it was, his late entry and a badly set collarbone fracture meant that he did not open his score until the New Year of 1941.
When, subsequently, in the summer of 1941, Fighter Command launched a series of aggressive cross-Channel sweeps, the airmanship and combat skills exhibited by Johnson as a member of No 616, South Yorkshire’s AuxAF Spitfire squadron, were recognised by Douglas Bader, then leading his celebrated Spitfire wing from Tangmere at the foot of the South Downs.
Bader paid Johnson the compliment of inviting him to fly in his own section, and the two men struck up a lifelong friendship. On August 9, during the wing’s operation in support of a bomber attack on Gosnay, near Lille, Johnson was present when the legless Bader was shot down and taken prisoner.
Of that day, Johnson recalled how the amiable banter of his groundcrew relieved the tension as they strapped him in at Westhampnett airfield, a satellite of Tangmere. He remembered, too, how “the usual cockpit smell, that strange mixture of dope [varnish], fine mineral oil, gun oil and high octane assailing the nostrils” was “vaguely comforting”.
He tightened his helmet strap, swung the rudder with his feet on the pedals, wiggled the stick, thought about Lille and Me 109s and switched on his gunsight. “In a slanting climb we cross Beachy Head and steer for the French coast. Bader rocks his wings, we level out for the climb, slide out of our tight formation and adopt wider battle formations at 25,000 ft.”
James E ‘Johnnie’ Johnson
Over the Pas de Calais, the wing encountered a swarm of Me 109s. “We fan out alongside Bader. There are four 109s with others on either side. Before opening fire I have a swift glance to either side. For the first time I see Bader in the air, firing at a 109. My 109 pulls into a steep climb, I hang on and knock a few pieces from his starboard wing.”
Spotting a solitary Messerschmitt, Johnson dropped below, to take aim with his cannon at the unarmoured underside of the aircraft. Moments later a plume of thick black smoke marked the end of the 109.
In July 1942, when his score had already reached double figures, Johnson received command of No 610 (County of Chester), an AuxAF Spitfire squadron based at Ludham, hard by Hickling Broad in Norfolk. The next month, on August 19, 610 flew with New Zealander Jamie Jameson’s No 12 Group Spitfire wing in the air battle over Dieppe, in support of the disastrous Dieppe Raid.
“Over Dieppe,” Jameson recalled, “the wing was immediately bounced by a hundred FW 190s and a few Me 109s. I heard Johnson effing and blinding as he broke 610 into a fierce attack. I was hard at it dodging 190s, but I found time to speak sharply to Johnson about his foul language.”
Johnnie Johnson
Johnson flew four sorties over Dieppe, adding to his tally of “kills”. But he was always the first to acknowledge his debt to his groundcrew. “My life depended on my rigger Arthur Radcliffe and my fitter, Fred Burton,” he wrote. “They strapped me in, waved me off and welcomed me back – and whenever I was successful they were as pleased as me.”
James Edgar Johnson was born at Barrow-upon-Soar, near Loughborough, Leicestershire on March 9 1915. He was educated at Loughborough School and Nottingham University, where in 1937 he qualified as a civil engineer.
Aged 17, he bought a BSA 12-bore shotgun – for £1 down and nine similar monthly payments. Rabbits fetched a shilling each, and he reckoned that if he could average two rabbits from three shots he would pay for the gun.
“The principles of deflection shooting against wildfowl and aeroplanes were exactly the same, except that aeroplanes could sometimes return your fire.”
He became adept at deflection shooting on the ground and, graduating to wildfowling on the Lincolnshire marshes, adapted the skill to bring down widgeon, pintail and teal. “The principles of deflection shooting against wildfowl and aeroplanes,” he would reflect, “were exactly the same, except that aeroplanes could sometimes return your fire. The best fighter pilots were usually outdoor men who had shot game and wildfowl.”
Johnson also learned to ride at an early age, and he enjoyed his Yeomanry service – though after seeing Spitfires and Hurricanes on a visit, on horseback, to Wittering, he declared that he would “rather fight in one of those than on the back of this bloody horse”.
When the RAFVR expanded, he seized his chance and began training as a sergeant pilot, and was mobilised as war came. In August 1940 he joined No 19, a Spitfire squadron, but with the Battle of Britain raging over England the squadron was too pressed to train new pilots. In early September he moved to No 616, but was then hospitalised to have his fracture reset. He returned to the squadron in December.
Following command of No 610, in March 1943 Johnson was posted to lead the Canadian fighter wing at Kenley. Before long, Syd Ford, commanding No 403 Squadron, laid a pair of blue Canadian shoulder flashes on Johnson’s desk. “The boys would like you to wear these,” said Ford. “After all, we’re a Canadian wing and we’ve got to convert you. Better start now.”
Attacking ground targets and acting as escorts to US Eighth Air Force Fortress bomber formations, Johnson’s Canadians produced ever increasing scores – in addition to Johnson’s 14 kills and five shared between April and September. When Johnson left the squadron to rest from operations, his send-off party was such that the wing was stood down the next day.
Such was Johnson’s reputation with the Canadians that when, early in 1944, the Royal Canadian Air Force formed No 144 Wing of three squadrons at Digby, in Lincolnshire, they insisted Johnson command it.
At the D-Day landings on June 6 1944, Johnson led the wing four times over the Normandy beaches. Thereafter, from a base near St Croix-sur-Mer, he and his men saw much action, and he himself had soon notched up his 28th kill, an FW 190 shot down over the Normandy bocage.
On the ground, Johnson got about on a horse he had found abandoned by the Germans. In the mess, dissatisfied with field rations, he brightened up meals with airlifts of bread, tomatoes, lobster and stout supplied by the wing’s favourite Chichester landlord.
Johnnie Johnson
In April 1945, Johnson was promoted group captain and given command of No 125 Wing, equipped with the latest Griffon-engined Spitfire XIVs. After VE Day, on May 8, he led the wing to Denmark. In the course of the war, he had never been shot down and had only once been hit by an enemy fighter, over France in August 1944.
After Denmark, he was posted to Germany in command of No 124 Wing. In 1947, having reverted to the substantive rank of wing commander (the price of peace and a permanent commission), he was sent to Canada to attend the RCAF staff college at Toronto.
The next year he went on exchange to the US Air Force, and in 1950-51 he served with the Americans in Korea, before returning to Germany to command RAF Wildenrath until 1954.
In 1957, once more in the rank of group captain, Johnson was transferred to the world of bombers, as Commander of the new Victor V-bomber station at Cottesmore, Rutland. He relished the opportunities to imbue bomber crews with fighter philosophy and to fly their powerful jet aircraft – and also to hunt with the Cottesmore and to hold hunt balls in the officers’ mess.
Johnnie Johnson with a Spitfire with his number
After promotion to air commodore and a spell as Senior Air Staff Officer at Bomber Command’s No 3 Group, at Mildenhall, Suffolk, he received (on promotion to air vice-marshal) his final command – Middle East Air Forces, Aden. Johnson rated the latter command “the best air vice-marshal’s job in the Air Force”.
After retirement from the RAF in 1965, he sat on company boards in Britain, Canada and South Africa. He also launched, and until 1989 ran, the Johnnie Johnson Housing Trust, providing housing and care for the elderly, the disabled, and vulnerable young people and families. Today the trust manages more than 4,000 houses and flats.
He wrote several readable books, notably Wing Leader (1956), a wartime autobiography, and Full Circle (1964). With his friend and fellow ace Wing Commander P B “Laddie” Lucas, he wrote Glorious Summer (1990); Courage in the Skies (1992); and Winged Victory (1995).
In addition to the decorations mentioned already he was awarded an American DFC, Air Medal, and Legion of Merit, and the Belgian Croix de Guerre and Order of Leopold.
He was appointed CBE in 1960 and CB in 1965. He became a Deputy Lieutenant for Leicester in 1967, and was appointed to the Legion d’honneur in 1988.
Johnnie Johnson married, in 1942, Pauline Ingate; they had two sons.”
REEL 1 Background in Barrow upon Soar, GB, 1915-1939: family; education. Aspects of pilot training with RAF in GB, 1939-1940: reaction to outbreak of Second World War, 9/1939; flying training, 9/1939-8/1940; opinion of Supermarine Spitfire; difficulties of night flying. Recollections of operations as pilot with 616 Sqdn, No 11 Group, Fighter Command, RAF in GB, 9/1940-6/1942: joining squadron at RAF Kenley, 5/9/1940; squadron morale; first aerial action with Pilot Officer Hugh Dundas over North Sea, 1/1941; duties protecting east coast convoys, 1/1941; move to RAF Tangmere to join Tangmere Wing, 2/1941-10/1941; character of cross Channel operations; ‘circus’ bomber escort raids; dangers of being shot down; opinion of quality of foreign pilots in RAF; nature of combat between German Air Force and RAF; memory of Squadron Leader Douglas Bader and attitude within RAF towards Air Marshal Hugh Dowding; procedure for claiming combat successes; attitude of British public towards fighter pilots. Aspects of operations commanding 610 Sqdn, No 12 Group, Fighter Command, RAF in GB, 7/1942-2/1943: posting to squadron; opinion of Spitfire Mk V; his method of attack.
REEL 2: tactics for attacking aircraft; inexperienced pilots; duties as squadron leader; personnel of 610 Sqdn; comparison of auxiliary and servce squadrons; facilities at RAF Ludham; operation in support of Dieppe Raid, 19/8/1942; impact of arrival Focke Wulf Fw 190 and development of Supermarine Spitfire Mark IX; role escorting US Army Air Force bombers on operations over Europe 1943; opinion of American daylight bombing campaign. Recollections of operations commanding 127 (RCAF), 144 and 125 Wings, No 83 Group, 2nd Tactical Air Force, RAF in GB and North West Europe, 1943-1944: escort and fighter sweep duties; aerial combat successes, 1943; opinion of German pilots in 1943 as compared with RAF; limited range of Supermarine Spitfire; training as tactical air force, 1943-1944; Supermarine Spitfire fighter-bomber role against V1 Flying Bomb sites; operations over Normandy beaches on D-Day, 6/6/1944; posting to St Croix-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, 11/6/1944; opinion of Supermarine Spitfire in bombing role and its use in North West Europe campaign; nature of aerial fighting over Europe 1944-1945; operations from Brussels Evere, Belgium, autumn 1944.
REEL 3: Continues lack of involvement in Operation Market Garden, 9/1944; damage inflicted by German Air Force attack on Brussels Evere, Belgium, 1/1/1944; living conditions in Belgium; promotion to group captain commanding 125 Wing, RAF in Eindhoven, Netherlands, 5/1945; encounter with German jet aircraft over Arnhem, Netherlands, autumn 1944; sight of devastation in Germany, 1945; attitude of Germans towards British. Aspects of operations as pilot with RAF attached to Tactical Air Command, US Air Force in Korea, 1950-1951: attitude of American troops towards Korean war; importance of tactical aviation in Korea; use of napalm. Opinion that second front should have been launched in Pas de Calais not Normandy, France, 1944.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=totM4Sa-T3M poor quality recording – a copy of a DVD, copied from a VHS tape – was taken in 1991 when he was 76. He had been invited to speak at a recently-established game shoot in Edmondthorpe in Rutland called the ‘Somme Shoot’. A number of local WWI veterans had been invited to a dinner after the day’s shoot. Johnnie told them: “We like to think that we had learned something from you gentlemen of the first contest in the first war with the same foe – a pox on them by the way!”.
Squadron Leader Basil Gerald ‘Stapme’ Stapleton DFC recalls The Battle of Britain…
“His score of 6 enemy aircraft destroyed, 2 shared destroyed, 8 probably destroyed and 2 damaged,[1] all achieved on Spitfires during the Battle of Britain made him one of the outstanding pilots of that battle and he was revered as one of Richard Hillary‘s contemporaries in whose book The Last Enemy, he features. Without doubt he was one of the real ‘characters’ to survive the war and to many the quintessential image of a Battle of Britain fighter pilot, complete with handlebar moustache.” (Wikipedia)
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
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