WRIGHT, F/O John Garn (J7233) - Distinguished Flying Cross - No.112 Squadron - Award effective 10 May 1943 as per London Gazette dated 25 May 1943 and AFRO 1294/43 dated 9 July 1943. Born 4 August 1922 in Ottawa. Home in Ottawa; enlisted there 10 December 1940 and posted to No.1 Manning Depot. To No.1 Training Command, 7 January 1941. To No.3 ITS, date uncertain; graduated and promoted LAC, 4 May 1941 when posted to No.13 EFTS; graduated 20 June 1941 when posted to No.9 SFTS; graduated and commissioned 30 August 1941. To Embarkation Depot, 2 September 1941; to RAFoverseas, 18 September 1941. Further trained at No.57 OTU. Posted to No.401 Squadron, January 1942. To Middle East, April 1942, attending No.1 Conversion School, El Ballah, converting to Tomahawks and Kittyhawks before posting to No.112 Squadron. Shot down once by flak when at 400 feet; regained our lines which were nearby. To No.73 OTU, Abu Sueir, June 1943. Promoted Flying Officer, 1 September 1942. Promoted Flight Lieutenant, 1 September 1943 and posted to Middle East Gunnery School, El Ballah. In December 1943 to No.21 Pilots Training Centre before being returned to England. Leave in Canada, February to April 1944 before return to Britain and service with No.442 Squadron . Work with them included attacks on midget submarines, Seine Estuary, 8 July 1944. Repatriated 12 September 1944. Joined the staff of No.2 SFTS, 15 October 1944. To No.1 FIS, 3 November 1944. Returned to No.2 SFTS, 28 January 1945; to No.1 Composite Training School, 22 March 1945; to No.5 Radio School, 23 April 1945. To No.14 SFTS, 14 May 1945. To No.1 Air Command, 8 September 1945; to Trenton, 7 September 1945; to No.1 SFTS, 15 September 1945. To No.3 Release Centre, 25 October 1945. Released, 13 November 1945. Joined Royal Canadian Navy, taking courses in Britain (including a Meteor conversion course). Served as Air Gunnery Officer on HMCS Magnificent. Appointed Lieutenant-Commander (Flying) at Shearwater, September 1950). Retired March 1968, having flown 2,712 hours including 64 deck landings. Award forwarded to him via the Royal Canadian Navy. Died 17 August 1980. Chris Shores, Those Other Eagles (Grub Street, London, 2004) provides a victory list as follows (all with No.112 Squadron): 24 July 1942: one Bf.109F destroyed, El Daba (Kittyhawk AK995); 1 October 1942: one Bf.109F damaged, El Taqa (Kittyhawk EV318); 26 October 1942: one Bf.109F destroyed, north of El Alamein (Kittyhawk FR275; he pursued this victim over the lines, was hit by flak, and was knocked unconscious when he crash-landed; retrieved by South African troops); 19 November 1942: one Me.210 probably destroyed, Gazala area (Kittyhawk FR264); 27 February 1943: one Bf.109F/G probably destroyed, El Hamma (Kittyhawk FR413); 22 March 1943: one Bf.109G destroyed (Kittyhawk FR276); 20 April 1943: one Ju.88 destroyed south of Cap Bon (Kittyhawk FR276, shared among twelve pilots). // This officer has taken part in a large number of sorties including numerous fighter bomber attacks against enemy airfields and mechanized transport. In air combat he has destroyed at least three enemy aircraft. Flying Officer Wright has displayed great keenness, skill and determination. // RCAF Press Release dated 30 January 1943 from F/O MacGillivray read: // Flying Officer John Gary Wright of 18 Tormie Street, Ottawa, Canada, former student of Lisgar Collegiate who deserted his studies to enter the RCAF in December of 1940, has put in 115 hours of operational flying in the desert since being posted to the Middle East last year, and has chalked up a record of two enemy aircraft destroyed and one probable. Both destroyed were Me109’s. // Wright had a narrow escape in one of the scraps, for, immediately after shooting down the 109 behind its own lines, he was hit by enemy ack-ack, and his engine quit while he was at only 400 feet. The British lines, however, were not far away, and the Ottawa pilot managed a successful crash-landing among our troops. He struck his head on a projection in his cockpit and suffered a gash requiring four stitches. // His other destroyed he secured when about to bomb an enemy ‘drome. Spotting two Hun fighters, the Kittyhawk pilots jettisoned their bombs and went into the attack, Wright shooting down one of the Messerschmitts. His probable was a German aircraft rarely encountered in the Middle East --- an Me210 --- which he set on fire after a battle in and out of cloud. The Hun’s tail-gunner secured hits in Wright’s tail-plane, but no controls were damaged. // Another RCAF graduate who left school for the air is F/S Herbert Snelgrove of 14A Woodycrest Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, former student of Riverdale Collegiate and Central “Tech”, who is also flying Kittyhawks in the desert after a short time on Spitfires in England. His operational hours now total 75, and he has come unscathed through aerial encounters with Me109’s, Ju88’s, and Macchi 202’s. // His operational career delayed by a term of ferrying aircraft across Africa, and a resultant bout of malaria, P/O Rae D. Guess --- known on the squadron as “The Goose” --- of 443 Strathcona Avenue, Westmount, Montreal, has just finished his first three “ops”, on the first of which he was attacked by an Me109, but shook it off. Guess, a former McGill University student, previously lived in Toronto, where he attended North Toronto Collegiate.