John Colin Mungo-Park, DFC & Bar (25 March 1918 – 27 June 1941) was a Royal Air Force fighter pilot and flying ace of the Second World War.

[4] Mungo-Park's father, Colin, had joined the British Army at the start of the First World War as a private with the 7th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment.

On 24 October 1918, just seven months after his son's birth, Lance Corporal Colin Park was killed in action during the Hundred Days Offensive.

[6] Mungo-Park joined the Royal Air Force on a short service commission in June 1937 and was made acting pilot officer on 9 August.

[7] He was confirmed as a pilot officer on 31 May 1938,[8] and was posted to the Anti Aircraft Co-operation Unit of the Fleet Air Arm at Lee on Solent and then in August 1938 to HMS Argus flying Fairey Swordfish.

74 Squadron were providing cover for the British retreat from France and the Dunkirk evacuation, Mungo-Park was wounded and his Spitfire damaged during an engagement with a Henschel Hs 126, but he managed to recross the Channel and land at RAF Rochford.

In the day's third combat, over a convoy 'Booty' off Clacton, Mungo attacked two Bf 110s in quick succession and saw the first crash into the sea and the second go down pouring black smoke.

[13] On the evening of 27 June 1941, flying Spitfire Vb X4668, Mungo-Park was part of an escort for a bombing raid over northern France coded 'Circus 25'.

They were attacked by two formations of Bf 109s, led by Rolf Pingel of I./JG 26 (who had been spared by Bob Doe during the Battle of Britain)[14][15] and Wilhelm Balthasar of JG 2.

In a twist of fate, Wilhelm Balthasar died in an air crash less than a week later and was buried in a Flanders cemetery alongside his father who had been killed in the First World War.

He succeeded in shooting down two of these and, although his own aircraft was badly damaged, Squadron Leader Mungo-Park flew back to this country making a skilful forced landing.

His courage and leadership have contributed materially to the successes achieved by his squadron.Mungo-Park had claimed 11 aircraft destroyed (and 2 shared), 5 probables, and 4 damaged.

[18] Thanks to the efforts of Belgian Johny Recour, who had witnessed Mungo-Park's crash as a boy, a memorial service was held on 22 May 2006.