John learned to fly before the war at Mascot and flew solo after three hours, gaining his pilots licence in 10 hours. He enlisted in the RAAF in December 1942 and after initial training at Bradfield Park was posted to Narrandera to fly Tiger moths. Categorised for single engine aircraft he gained his wings at Uranquinty and was then posted to Evans head as a staff pilot on Fairy Battles. Eventually John was posted to England where he joined 603 City of Edinburgh Squadron at the beginning of 1945 flying Spitfire Mk XVI operationally over Holland and Belgium mostly on ground attack sorties but also some daylight escorts of Lancasters. Following the war John flew commercially accumulating 26,000 hours, having flown a wide variety of aircraft including Sandringham, Dakota, Super Constellation and nomad. John’s story is about a precision attack on German scientists at the Hague.