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<em>John Joseph Courtney, Jr.,</em> was born in New York City on 6 Mar 1918 to John J. and Anna Griffith Courtney. Raised in Brooklyn, he attended Brooklyn Prepara­tory School from 1932 to 1936, Fordham University from 1938 to 1939, and then joined the Army National Guard.</p>
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Six-feet four inches tall, handsome and dark-haired, he was called “Long John” at West Point where he played baseball (first base) and basketball (center). While still a cadet, he went to California for flight train­ing, where he met his future wife, Patricia Ann Sollo. Returning to West Point upon completion of flight training in December, he was an honorary cadet captain until his graduation the following month. John’s <em>Howitzer</em> entry noted: “It is not unusual to find at West Point an athlete, or a student, or a man born to lead men; but to find one who is all three is a rarity. John was that rarity. He passed up stars that he might help less gifted cadets, and to find him coaching others after taps was not unusual. He found time for ev­ery hop and dragged as regularly as he went to class. He liked being a cadet, but West Point was even happier to have him.”</p>
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After graduating into the Army Air Corps in January 1943, John devoted four months to P-38 transition flying at Santa Ana, CA; three months to P-40 and P-51 transition flying at Orlando, FL; four more months to P-38 transition flying at Santa Ana; and two final months to P-38 staging at Oxnard, CA. On 6 Nov 1943, he married Patricia in Iowa, and they subsequently had four sons. In February 1944, 1LT Courtney was making a test run in a newly conditioned Lightning P-38, flying level at 8,000 feet over the Oxnard Flight Strip. Suddenly, the plane went into a vertical dive, plummeting earth­ward at about 700 miles per hour. Losing al­titude at a tremendous rate, John rolled back his canopy, bailed out, and pulled his ripcord just in time to land safely just 50 yards from where his airplane had crashed and exploded. As doctors treated him for a dislocated shoul­der and a sprained knee, fellow officers from his flight congratulated him on achieving an “impossible” feat.</p>
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Going to England in February 1944, John flew P-38s until he was shot down in August while leading a P-38 formation straf­ing targets in France. After two months be­hind enemy lines, he was captured for a short time. The Germans were not sure he was an American, and when they left him unguard­ed for a short time, he escaped by starting a fire in a waste paper can as a diversion. He evaded capture until he found armored units of GEN Patton’s Third Army. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, and four Air Medals in Europe.</p>
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After returning to the States to give flight instruction to West Point cadets during 1944–46, John then taught mathematics at USMA during 1946–50. Then he earned a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1952. John worked three years in the highly secret National Security Agency in Washington, then attended the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, VA, before spending three years in the Air Staff in Washington. From 1959 to 1961, he served in the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group in Washington. He then went to Hanscom Field, Bedford, MA, to the Electronics Systems Command.</p>
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Retiring from the Air Force in 1963, John worked for Pan American Airways for four years and then nine years for Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation. In 1976, he began teaching Advanced Mathematics at both the undergraduate and graduate lev­els at the Florida Institute of Technology. In 1978, the students awarded him the coveted Teacher of the Year Award, a first for an ad­junct professor at FIT. An early innovator in the use of home computers for pre-internet communications, John was Webmaster for the Brevard Users Group (BUG) long before the Internet became available to the general public. In his January 1943 <em>50-Year Book,</em> John reported: “...taught math at Florida Tech. There I lost my first wife to cancer. Years later, I met and married Claire, a truly wonderful lady, and we are living in Melbourne Beach, Florida.”</p>
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<em>“Dad was a loving husband to our mother and a wonderful father to my brothers and me. There was nothing he would not do for us. He was always patient with us, and only God knows how patient he had to be raising four boys. He left work at work and always made time for the family. He was a teacher at home and in the classroom, the difference was at home we were unaware he was teaching. We miss him."</em>—John III</p>
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<em>“Dad was the best. I remember the day he bought me my first surfboard. I was maybe seven years old. I had to go right into the water, so we did. He pushed me onto wave after wave, after wave. Finally, after several hours, we got out. When we got out, I noticed his legs were all cut up. Unbeknownst to me, he had been standing in and around coral rocks the whole time. Did he complain? Not once. In fact, even after I asked about him, he said it was no big deal. I love my Dad. He would do anything for me and/or any one of his boys, his wife, his friends, his colleagues, etc. He is without ques­tion the most giving, charitable man I have ever known. God Bless Him. ”</em>—Mike</p>
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John is survived by his loving and devot­ed wife Claire; four sons: John III, Patrick, Michael, and Thomas; two stepsons, Jeffrey and Michael Harrison; a step-daughter, Tacy Daniel; three grandchildren, Kristin, Scott, and Tricia Courtney; and eight step-grandchildren: Shannon, Bridget, Genevieve, Katrina, Jessica, Jon, and Victoria Harrison and Colie Daniel; as well as two step-great-grandchildren.</p>
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