John Godley, 3rd Baron Kilbracken

John Raymond Godley, 3rd Baron Kilbracken, DSC (17 October 1920 – 14 August 2006), was a British-born, later Irish-resident peer, wartime naval pilot, journalist, author and farmer.

Godley was born in Chester Street in Belgravia, and educated at Arnold House School in St John's Wood in London, followed by Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, developing an interest in horse racing and betting at both latter places, and rowing in the first VIII at Eton and the university second boat, Isis, at Oxford.

He was awarded the DSC for commanding the mixed Swordfish and Grumman Wildcat squadron from the escort carrier HMS Nairana in an attack on enemy shipping on 29 January 1945.

He also wrote several books under the name "John Godley", including Tell Me the Next One (1950), The Master Forger (1951, a biography of the Vermeer forger Han van Meegeren), Living Like a Lord (1955), A Peer Behind the Curtain (1959) and Shamrocks and Unicorns (1962), a second biography of the Vermeer forger Han van Meegeren (1967, under the name "Lord Kilbraken"), a war autobiography entitled Bring Back My Stringbag (1979), and The Easy Way to Bird Recognition (1982), which won an award and was followed up by The Easy Way to Tree Recognition (1983) and The Easy Way to Wild Flower Recognition (1984).

He succeeded his father as Baron Kilbracken in 1950, while visiting New Zealand to celebrate the centenary of the foundation of Christchurch and the province of Canterbury by his great-great-grandfather, John Robert Godley.

He also renounced his British nationality, taking up an Irish passport, but retaining his right to sit in the House of Lords until the reforms in 1999.