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His service record states "Service considered for the grant of war medals" which would suggest that his D.F.C. was for general
activities and not for one heroic act. With the aircraft of the time and the ferocious fighting it was rare for a pilot to survive for long.
Probably a number of medals were awarded just for surviving. He does not appear to have kept up his membership of the Royal Aero Club after the First War. Sometime after the War he moved to Canada and flew mails for the Canadian Post office. He was a pilot with Canadian Airways which was formed in the late 1920's. He flew the mail and also passengers summer and winter. Initially run by the Air Force, the mail service was later subcontracted to private companies. The President of Canadian Airways in 1930 was Colonel R.H. Mulock. He was a pilot with the Canadian contingent of the Royal Naval Air Service in WW1 and presumably at some point in their service careers John Yonge met him. With this account are some copy records of Canadian airways. It shows that on 7/8th June 1930 he was involve in various flights to and from Hamilton and London in connection with the opening of Bartford Airport. The records show that only small amounts of mail were carried on these inaugural flights at Bartford. On the flight from Bartford to Hamilton on the 7th of June just four cachets with 1189 pieces of mail. His address is shown at this time as being Vancouver British Columbia and England. Between 1833 and 1940 he was the propietor of "Yonge Letter Service." According to his service record, he married Marita McMillan Kerr in Toronto on the 4th October 1923. On his death certificate, his wife's name is given as Mary Macmillan. They had no children. According to his Cousin Colin Eyre Yonge, Jack told him on a visit of Colin's to England in the 1960's that he, Jack was involved in the training of the dambuster pilots. To check this out his service record has been obtained. This shows that he returned to Britain in 1940 and re-enlisted in the RAF and was granted a commission, with the rank of probationary Pilot Officer on 12 July 1940, within the Administrative and Special Duties Branch, "for the duration of hostilities". On this date he is recorded as being posted to Loughborough. Loughborough was not strictly an RAF airfield, but was used by Brush Electrical Engineering Company to test fly the de Havilland Domine (the military version of the Rapide) bi-plane navigation/radio trainer which they built as part of the dispersal scheme. Jack Yonge would not have been involved with flying, (being A+SD). The airfield was to the, north-west of the town and had a grass runway of just under 2000 feet. In fact, the reference to "Stn" Loughborough while it may refer to the airfield; it could even refer to a non-airfield establishment in the town. There he attended No.19 Course; although the actual course discipline cannot be deciphered from his service record. |
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