After pilot training and operations, he was shot down over France on Anzac Day, 25 April 1942, receiving severe burns to his face and eyes.
He was captured, caused a great deal of trouble in German military hospitals and POW camps, and was then repatriated, through Cairo Red Cross, because of his injuries.
He was formally invalided out of the Royal Air Force in April 1945 and received a Totally and Permanently Incapacitated pension from the British Government for the rest of his life.
[3] In turn that led to a notorious brawl at the Anglican Press between Clyde and Kerry Packer, on the one hand, and James and the journalist and former boxer Frank Browne, on the other.
In spring 1969, James travelled to China with the support of an Australian senator, and while there he "ran into a man I had met before, a Uighur of enormous influence in Sinkiang".
[6] After over three years' imprisonment, described as "constant interrogation and solitary confinement", he was released and expelled in 1973 after lobbying by his old friend Gough Whitlam, who was then Prime Minister.