John Lerew
John Margrave Lerew was an officer and pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II. As commander of No.24 Squadron, based in New Britain, he became famous in the annals of Air Force history for his irreverent response to orders by headquarters in Australia. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, he subsequently commanded the RAAF’s first flying safety directorate. After leaving the Air Force in 1946 as a group captain, he took up a position with the newly formed ICAO in Canada. Retiring in 1972, he travelled extensively before settling in Vancouver, where he died in 1996, aged eighty-three.
About John Lerew in brief
John Margrave Lerew was an officer and pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II. As commander of No.24 Squadron, based in New Britain, he became famous in the annals of Air Force history for his irreverent response to orders by headquarters in Australia. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, he subsequently commanded the RAAF’s first flying safety directorate. After leaving the Air Force in 1946 as a group captain, he took up a position with the newly formed ICAO in Canada. He was responsible for several of its administrative and technical reforms, and rose to Chief of Flight Branch in 1969. Retiring in 1972, he travelled extensively before settling in Vancouver, where he died in 1996 at the age of eighty-three. The family was of French Huguenot extraction, the original name being Le Roux. He studied part-time for a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at the University of Melbourne, concurrently serving approximately two years in the militia with various units including the 39th Battalion, 3rd Division Artillery Survey Unit, and Melbourne University Regiment. He also developed a love of fast cars, joining a racing team and placing third in the 1930 Australian Grand Prix. He died in Vancouver in 1996, aged eighty-five, and was buried in the Vancouver suburb of Burnley. He is survived by his wife, two children and a step-granddaughter. The couple had a son and a daughter, both of whom were born in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s.
The son was born in Hamilton, Victoria, the son of William Margrave, a chemist and veterinary surgeon who had emigrated from England with his two brothers. The daughter was the daughter of William Margrave and his first wife, Mary Margrave. The father and daughter were both born in Melbourne, and the mother was a former member of the Scotch College, Melbourne, where she was a member of a racing racing team. He served in the Australian Army Air Corps from 1932 to 1939. He joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1935 and was posted to No.1 Aircraft Depot at RAAF Station Richmond, New South Wales, in September 1940, and shortly afterwards undertook a survey of the Solomon Islands and the island of New Britain. In June 1940 he was promoted squadron leader in June 1940. In May 1941 he was given command of No 24 Squadron in May 1941, and raised to temporary wing commander in October. In February 1942, he led a low-level bombing raid on enemy shipping in New Guinea that set two vessels on fire. In December 1941, he was put on notice for deployment to Rabaul as an advance garrison in the advance defence of Australia’s northern airfield. The two-seat Wirraway monoplane trainers were expected to be employed in operations as fighters, but were only suitable for such a role in the minds of the Air Board. The Hudons began moving to RAAF Vunakan Station in north Queensland on 5 December 1941.
You want to know more about John Lerew?
This page is based on the article John Lerew published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 29, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
