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Johnnie Johnson joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve for weekend training. In August 1939 he was called up and after gaining his wings was first posted to 19 Squadron. He missed most of the Battle of Britain while recovering from an injury he sustained in a rugby match. But he provided air cover for the Dieppe raid of August 1942, flew over the Normandy beaches on D-Day, and supported raids by American B- 17 bombers and advances by Allied ground forces in France and Germany. Johnson scored his first victory a Bf 109 on the 26th of June 1941, by September he had scored six victories. He honed his skills from flying in the Bader unit. By 1943 Johnson had become a formidable opponent and had shot down 20 aircraft. Johnson's final kill came on the 27th of September 1944, near Venlo in the Netherlands, in a dogfight with nine Messerschmitts, when his Spitfire was hit for the first and only time in the war. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and the Distinguished Flying Cross. He returned to combat in the Korean War, flying fighter- bomber missions while attached to the United States Air Force, and received the United States Legion of Merit and the Air Medal. It has been said that Johnnie Johnson waived a lot of his kills to other pilots to boost their confidence, so his score could have been a lot higher. Jonnie Johnson finished the War as the British top scorer with 34 victories, he retired in 1966 as Air Vice Marshall.
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