John Mortimer Warfield
John Mortimer Warfield, nicknamed “Johnnie,” was born on 26 September 1912 in Bideford, Devon, England, and died in 1970 in Aldershot, Hampshire, England. He joined the Royal Air Force on 29 December 1930 and trained at the RAF Central Depot and other schools before becoming a pilot with No. 13 Squadron in 1931. He rose through the ranks, serving as an Armament Officer and a squadron leader, and he was posted to Malta in the late 1930s.
During World War II, Warfield became Officer Commanding RAF Ta’ Qali in Malta in 1941. In 1942 he took command of No. 226 Squadron at Wattisham, flying Boston bombers in daylight raids over Germany in support of the U.S. Air Force. He was promoted to group captain in 1943 and served as station commander of RAF Wattisham toward the end of the war, before returning briefly to the rank of wing commander.
After the war, Warfield helped fight the Malayan Emergency. He served as Command Armament Officer at Headquarters Far Eastern Air Command and later as Senior Air Staff Officer at Air Headquarters Malaya, moving with the campaign into the advancing stage of operations.
Back in the United Kingdom, he became Officer Commanding RAF Waddington in 1950. In 1955 he was acting air commodore as Air Officer Commanding No. 66 Group RAF, and in 1957 his rank was made substantive as he served as Air Officer Administration at Headquarters British Forces Arabian Peninsula.
On 29 June 1959 Warfield became the Commandant of the Royal Observer Corps, a post he held until his retirement on 26 June 1961, when he handed over to Air Commodore C. M. Wight-Boycott.
Awards he received include the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in January 1946 and the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in April 1949. Wars and operations he was involved in included the Second World War, the Malayan Emergency, and Operation Helsby.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 10:59 (CET).