Early Years
Johnson was born in North Melbourne, an inner suburb of Melbourne, on 8 December 1918. His father, William Johnson—a wine and spirit grocer—was a keen cricketer who played one first-class match for Victoria in 1924–25 before serving as a selector for the Australian Test team.
As a schoolboy, Ian Johnson excelled at a variety of sports. He participated in athletics and Australian rules football, as well as playing as a wicket-keeper for Middle Park State School. In 1936, he became the Victorian amateur squash champion. However, he found his vocation in cricket. In 1934–35, aged only 16, and still a schoolboy at Wesley College, Johnson played his first match for the South Melbourne Cricket Club First XI.
He was given the opportunity to play first-class cricket the following season, playing Tasmania—not then involved in the Sheffield Shield competition—just 23 days past his seventeenth birthday. He scored 34 and 26 and took two wickets in each innings as Tasmania won by six wickets. He was retained for the next game, scoring 15 runs in his only innings and taking 3 wickets for 40 runs (3/40) in the Tasmanian first innings and 1/27 in the second.
He did not play first-class cricket again for three years, finally returning to the Victorian side to play another two games against Tasmania in 1938–39, making his highest first-class score to date, 88 runs, in the second game. He secured his place in the Victorian team in the 1939–40 season, making his Sheffield Shield debut against South Australia in Adelaide in November 1939. Batting at number five, Johnson scored 33 runs in the first innings and 41 in the second, but was unable to take a wicket. That season, Johnson scored 313 runs at an average of 26.08 and took 13 wickets at an average of 39.92. In a season truncated because of the Second World War, Johnson played five matches in 1940–41, scoring 292 runs at an average of 32.44 and taking 25 wickets at 27.60.
Johnson's cricket career was interrupted by the war and he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in March 1941. He flew Bristol Beaufighters with No. 22 Squadron RAAF and, by 1944, was serving as a Flight Lieutenant in the South West Pacific theatre. In June 1945, Johnson was awarded the Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air for his work as a flight instructor with No. 11 Elementary Flying Training School, based at Benalla in rural Victoria. He was discharged in December 1945 and resumed his first-class cricket career in the 1945–46 season.
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