JOHNSTON, CPL Neil "Walter", WWII Veteran

JOHNSTON

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 12/9/2015 at 04:57:13

Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, November 26, 2015, Page 10

PORTRAIT of a VETERAN
from Ringgold County Veterans Affairs

(NEIL) WALTER JOHNSTON

Corporal (Neil) Walter Johnston was born in California and raised in Ringgold County.

He joined the United States Army Air Corps in June of 1944 and completed basic training at Keesler Field in Mississippi. He then attended pre-flight training at Creighton University in Nebraska and then Air Traffic Controllers School at Langley Field, Virginia.

Corporal Johnston was then shipped to Guam and later Iwo Jima where he was an air traffic controller until his discharge in 1947.

Walter commented that he guided almost ever aircraft in the Army inventory in for a safe landing. He returned to the family farm and has been farming in that location since.

He and wife Irma currently live on the farm at Beaconsfield.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, December of 2015