John William McGuire

John William McGuire was born on 20 May 1911 in Leederville, Western Australia, and joined the Royal Air Force as an Australian cadet, departing for the United Kingdom in July 1934. He built a career as a specialist test pilot and by the time of the Second World War held the rank of Wing Commander, serving as Officer Commanding the Performance Test Squadron at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment, Boscombe Down — the RAF’s principal centre for evaluating new and foreign aircraft entering service. His exceptional work in experimental flying was recognised with the award of the Air Force Cross and Bar, the decoration conferred on aircrew whose distinguished service lay in non-operational but hazardous flying duties. On 24 March 1942, McGuire was conducting a performance test flight in Consolidated Liberator AL546 when electrical faults developed and the starboard outer engine caught fire; the blaze could not be brought under control, and although he ordered his crew to bale out, McGuire himself was unable to abandon the aircraft before it crashed in Dorset. He was thirty years old. He was cremated at Southampton Old Crematorium, Hampshire, where his name is recorded on Panel 3; he is also commemorated at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.