Though he was in a reserved occupation, Albert Meagher, known to everyone as ‘Johnny’, volunteered for training as a pilot and was called up in July 1941. He duly completed his training as an RAF bomber pilot and joined the Avro Lancaster-equipped 61 Squadron in June 1942.
Johnny’s first operational sortie – an attack on Bremen – came on the 25th of the month. During the next six weeks Meahger’s crew attacked eleven more cities including Frankfurt, Munich, Kiel and the industrial targets in the Ruhr. On 16 January 1943, Bomber Command attacked Berlin, and for the raid the prominent American NBC reporter, Stan Richardson, was assigned to Meagher’s crew. After 34 sorties over Germany, it might be thought that Squadron Leader Meagher would have sought a less precarious posting. But nothing was further from his mind. Instead, he flew another 20 missions before finally leaving the frontline to become an instructor.
Meagher’s peacetime career was equally thrilling. He joined BOAC in 1946 and, early in 1950, carried out proving flights on the Handley Page Hermes to Africa. In June 1951, following the nationalisation of the Abadan oil refinery, Meagher flew to Iran to repatriate expelled British nationals. This involved a failed engine on take-off and an anxious flight to Cairo. In January 1952, he was selected as one of the early de Havilland Comet pilots and in January 1954 was in command of Comet Yoke Peter which he flew from Karachi to Rome. There he handed the aircraft over to a new crew who perished with their twenty-nine passengers shortly after take-off.
Over the next few years Meagher planned and proved the introduction of the Bristol Britannia airliner into BOAC service for which he was awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air. In 1958 he oversaw the flight that took the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester to visit Ethiopia. Again in 1961 he took the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on a six week state visit to India, Pakistan and Iran. The Queen thanked him personally with the award of Commander of the Royal Victoria Order (CVO). In this fascinating autobiography, Johnny Meagher’s remarkable career is revealed through his own words.
