Keith Frederick (Jimmy) Thiele, DSO, DFC & Two Bars (25 February 1921 – 5 January 2016) was an officer of the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) during the Second World War.

At the reception centre later that evening he was asked to declare his flying preference and he wrote "fighters", but was posted to RAF Bomber Command.

[6] He took severe risks and displayed leadership, tending to a sick comrade on one flight, and on another mission to Berlin flying low enough to knock out Nazi searchlights and anti-aircraft.

It was flying a Lancaster that Thiele completed 20 more missions and, in May 1943, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for displaying outstanding courage, keenness and determination during operations.

Thiele, dazed by a blow from a shell splinter that had struck him on the side of the head, limped the aircraft back from Duisburg on two engines.

Shortly after crossing the English coast he was unable to maintain height, but displaying superb airmanship he struggled on and succeeded in effecting a crashlanding at an airfield in Norfolk.

He informed Gibson that he did not want to appear ungrateful but disclosed he already had the wheels rolling to go to a unit flying experimental Spitfires as a step out of Bomber Command.

[5] Thiele believed that he had been picked out by Ralph Cochrane of Group Headquarters as a likely successor to Gibson, a position that would eventually go to Squadron Leader George Holden.

On the night of 15–16 September 1943, 5 of the 12 Lancasters were lost during a mission to bomb on the Dortmund-Ems Canal, including Holden's, which was shot down by flak with no survivors.

[5] Thiele was posted to a transport squadron and then almost immediately to the trans-Atlantic Ferry Command to fly Canadian-built Lancasters to England.

As the campaign opened he had been delegated to shore patrols along the Kent coast and the Narrow Seas in defence of coastal shipping, victims of sabotage attacks from occupied France.

[18] Slightly wounded, Thiele was taken captive by the flak crew that had shot him down and, following interrogation, he was sent to a prisoner of war (POW) camp at Dulag Luft near Wetzlar.

[5][19] On 31 March 1945, after the POW camp was liberated but before any transport or Allied forces arrived, Thiele and a Canadian airman stole bicycles and then a motorcycle, and he got back to his base five weeks before the end of the war in Europe.

[4][19] In May 1945, Thiele was awarded a second Bar to his DFC for displaying "the highest qualities of skill, together with great bravery and iron determination.

[10][23] He was the captain of the inaugural jet service from Brisbane to London in October 1959, flying the Sydney to Singapore leg of the trip in the Boeing 707.

[25] Thiele later built and operated a marina in Sydney and sailed his own yacht across the Tasman Sea to see New Zealand's first America's Cup defence when he was 80.