Nov 7, 1923 - July 18, 2014
John B. Westwood, the second eldest of Clarence P. and Mary C. Westwood’s nine children, was born on 7 November 1923 and grew up in central Kansas. Pearl harbor took him from Kansas State University to the U.S. Army Air Corps where he completed flight training. By 1944, he was flying from Southern England across France into Germany where he recorded 97 missions in the venerable P-47 airplane. Returning to the US. just before outbreak of the Battle of the Bulge he taught fledgling French flyers how to handle the P-47. After Victory in Europe Day, he remained in the military to eventually participate in a 1950 Delivery (by way of Labrador, Greenland, and Iceland) of two jet fighter groups to USAF unites in southern Germany. Soon, his unit was in the Korean conflict flying F-84’s against MIGs and the Chinese army troops who had crossed the Yalu River into North Korea. After 117 missions he returned to the U.S. in August, 1951 and was assigned to train Air National Guard unites. Four years later, he returned to Europe as a member of a jet fighter wing flying from a base in northeastern France. Westwood retired from the USAF in 1963, he spent a number of years with Boeing Airplane Company, and then six years in Taiwan with a charter airline providing support to U.S. Vietnam War troops. He subsequently worked for the U.S. Army at various bases in the U.S. and Europe retiring a second time in 2000 from a base in Hawthorne, NV. He leaves to his six children their memory of his lifelong military service in both the Hot and Cold wars which have been characterized the last half of the twentieth century in the Common Era. Graveside services with Military Honors will be held on Tuesday, July 29, 2014 at the Northern Nevada Veterans Cemetery in Fernley, Nevada at 11:00 a.m. Arrangements are with Smith Family Funeral Home in Fallon. 775-423-2255.
