UK Edition 
The story of Wilfred Johnson, the decorated WW2 pilot who has given his name to the Prime Minister's son
Wilfred Johnson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1945 for his cool handling of a plane crash at RAF Chivenor
When Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson grows up he will come to learn how he was named after a decorated World War II pilot who survived a dramatic crash when an engine on his RAF bomber cut out.
Wilfred Johnson, Boris Johnson’s grandfather, was rescued from that burning plane in August 1944. He was scarred by the flames and his recovery meant his right leg was an inch-and-a-half shorter than his left.
The Prime Minister and his fiancée Carrie Symonds will no doubt one day tell their son how his great-grandfather was awarded the DFC - the Distinguished Flying Cross - in 1945 for having coolly handled the crisis as he approached the RAF base at Chivenor in the South of England. Just moments after the port engine failed in August 1944 he managed to safely drop its payload of depth charges, meant for enemy U-boats. However, two of his crew were killed when the plane hit the RAF runway.
Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley, has told how one of his earliest memories was being woken by his mother at their family home in Braunton, North Devon, overlooking the RAF base to see the burning bomber, unaware that his father was the pilot.
Wilfred Johnson, known as “Johnny”, served in the RAF Coastal Command which played a key role in the Battle of the Atlantic. His job was to patrol the seas to seek and destroy German U-boats.
Born Osman Wilfred Kemal in Bournemouth in 1909, Wilfred was the son of Ali Kemal, an interior minister of the Ottoman Empire and one-time newspaper editor. As a journalist, Ali traveled extensively, enabling him to go to Switzerland where he met Winifred Brun. They married in London but Winifred died shortly after giving birth to Wilfred.
Wilfred’s birth certificate shows his grandmother, Margaret Johnson - known as Granny Johnson, was present at the birth and went on to raise him.
It was Granny Johnson who gave Wilfred her surname, having at one point applied to the Home Office for permission to do so, an application that was not needed because he was a British citizen despite his father being Turkish.
There has been speculation that she feared he would be bullied because he was growing up during the First World War when Britain was fighting Turkey, as well as Germany.
Even greater tragedy befell Wilfred when his father, having returned to Turkey, was kidnapped and killed in the 1922 Turkish War of Independence. He had angered nationalists by writing opinionated newspaper articles challenging their tactics, as well as backing calls for a British protectorate. When the nationalists took power his fate was sealed and he was lynched.
Wilfred Johson met his wife, Irene, in 1936 while in Egypt while he was cotton farming in the Nile Delta. They had three children and moved to Surrey where he worked for a few years as a timber broker.
In the 1950’s, the couple bought a hill farm in Exmoor where they spent the rest of their lives.
Far less is known about Ms Symond’s maternal grandfather, after whom her son has been named Lawrie. However, The Telegraph understands he was a GP originally named Joseph Lewis Lawrence, probably born in 1916, the son of Joseph Wilfred Lawrence. He had lived in London before his death in the mid-1970s.