Spitfire Ace of Aces: The Album: The Photographs of Johnnie Johnson

By Dilip Sarkar

Air Vice-Marshal James Edgar ‘Johnnie’ Johnson CB, CBE, DSO & Two Bars, DFC & Bar, DL was a character literally from the pages of Boys’ Own: an individual who became the RAF’s top-scoring fighter pilot of the Second World War. A one-time household name synonymous with the superlative Spitfire, Johnnie’s aerial combat successes inspired schoolboys for generations. As a ‘lowly Pilot Officer’, Johnnie Johnson learned his fighter pilot’s craft as a protégé of the legless Tangmere Wing Leader, Douglas Bader. After Bader was brought down over France and captured on 9 August 1941, Johnnie remained a member of 616 (South Yorkshire) Squadron, in which he became a flight commander and was awarded the DFC a month after Bader’s devastating loss. In time, Johnnie came to command a Canadian wing in 1943, when the Spitfire Mk.IX at last outclassed the Fw 190, and participated in some of the most important battles of the defeat of Nazi Germany, including Operation Overlord and the D-Day landings in 1944, Operation Market Garden and the airborne assault at Arnhem, and the Rhine Crossings, throughout all of which Johnnie also commanded Canadian wings. Johnnie’s remarkable career is revealed through this unparalleled collection of archive photographs, the majority of which are drawn from his own personal album or from other members of the Johnson family. Many have not been published before. Between them, they present a fascinating insight into the man himself, the machines he flew, and the men he served alongside.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781526791689

Dilip Sarkar

A prolific author, DILIP SARKAR has been obsessed with the Second World War for a lifetime. An MBE for ‘services to aviation history’, and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, unsurprisingly, for a retired police detective with a First in Modern History, his work has always been evidence-based - often challenging long-accepted myths. Firmly focussed on the ‘human’ experience of war, his many previous works include the authorized biographies of Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader and Air Vice-Marshal ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, the best-selling Spitfire Manual and The Few. Dilip has presented at such prestigious venues as Oxford University, the Imperial War and RAF Museums, and National Memorial Arboretum; he works on TV documentaries, both on and off screen.

Book preview

Introduction

This book supplements the detailed information in three of my previous works on this, the greatest Spitfire pilot of them all, Johnnie Johnson – details of which can be found in the Bibliography – in which Johnnie’s own books, Wing Leader and Full Circle, are also listed along with certain titles he co-authored with the late Wing Commander Laddie Lucas. They are essential reading for anyone wanting to get inside the character of this giant of a man.

The majority of the photographs presented here are from either Johnnie’s personal album or the Johnson family, to whom I am indebted, or my own archive. Every picture, as they say, tells its own story, so, without further ado…. To the photographs of the ‘Spitfire Ace of Aces’!

Dilip Sarkar MBE FRHistS

Alfred Edgar Johnson, Johnnie’s father, pictured whilst a sergeant in the Leicestershire Constabulary.

Johnnie with his mother, Beatrice.

Johnnie’s uncle, Charles Rossell, who won an MC in the Great War and inspired his eldest nephew with tales of derringdo. Recognising potential, Charles Rossell paid for Johnnie’s education at Loughborough Grammar School.