Johnny Johnson (RAF officer) Johnny Johnson (RAF officer) Squadron Leader George Leonard "Johnny" Johnson, (born 25 November 1921) is a retired Royal Air Force officer and Britain's last survivor of the original members of No. 617 Squadron RAF and of Operation Chastise, the "Dambusters" raid of 1943. George Johnson (known within the family as Leonard) was the sixth and last child born to Mary Ellen (née Henfrey) and Charles Johnson. He was born in the village of Hameringham in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. His mother died when he was three, leaving his father, a farm foreman, to bring up the family
No. 74 Squadron RAF 1939, after an early morning air raid alert, a flight of No. 56 (F) Squadron Hawker Hurricanes took off from North Weald. These were followed by two reserve Hurricanes. The two reserves were identified as enemy aircraft and Spitfires from RAF Hornchurch, among them No. 74 (F) Squadron, were ordered to attack them. Both were shot down. One pilot, P/O Montague Hulton-Harrop was killed; the other pilot, Frank Rose, survived. The pilot who fired the fatal shots was No. 74 (F) Squadron's John Freeborn. The exact story of what happened in this incident, which came to be known as the