RAF Service
Educated at Campbell College in Belfast, Thomson entered RAF College, Cranwell in 1959 and was commissioned into the Royal Air Force in 1962.
He was appointed Officer Commanding No.41 Squadron in 1976, Personal Staff Officer to the Chief of the Air Staff in 1979 and Station Commander at RAF Bruggen in 1981. He went on to be Director of Defence Concepts at the Ministry of Defence in 1985, Air Officer Commanding No. 1 Group in 1987 and Assistant Chief of the Air Staff in 1989. He became Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief at Support Command in 1991 and Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief at Strike Command in 1992.
In July 1994 he became the first Commander in Chief of the new NATO command, Allied Forces North-Western Europe. However, only days after taking up this post he became ill and was rushed to hospital at RAF Halton where he died aged 53.
Read more about this topic: John Thomson (RAF Officer)
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“We too are ashes as we watch and hear
The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise
Of one whose promised thoughts of other days
Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed,
The service record of his youth wiped out,
His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)