At the end of his training course, John was sent to Adelaide Airport (then at Parafield) for 15 months, while Doc Hogan went north to Moresby to start the Papua New Guinea service, Keith Hannay went to Rose Bay, Sydney, and Neil McRae went to Essendon. By 1939, John was back at Head Office, with the beginning in April that year of the first round-the-clock weather service in Melbourne and Sydney. On the Melbourne weather table (housed in what is now the despatch/registry area at No. 2 Drummond St.) with him were Neil McRae, Pat Squires and Joe Walpole.

In April 1941, most of the Bureau's staff went into the R.A.A.F. By this time the met. ranks had been swelled by such notables as Allen Bath (from the 1938–39 training course), Bill Gibbs, Harry Ashton and Arch Shields (from the 1940 course), and Vic Bahr and Frank Hannan (1941 course). John Lill.ywhite spent a Year in Sydney, then at the end of 1942 was sent to Darwin where he was Area Met. Officer until 1944 (preceded by Neil McRae and followed by Keith Hannay). Another year followed back at Parafield, then on to Townsville and Morotai, where he saw the war out. From Morotai (now part of Indonesia), he spent four months at Madang and another four at Moresby, finally returning to Australia at the end of July 1946. John, who attained the rank of squadron leader, was the last RAAF met. officer out of New Guinea.

He spent 1946–51 back at HO Melbourne in the analysis section, then had charge of the training school for several years before his appointment as RD Vic (or as it was known then, Deputy Director, Victoria). Incidentally, the Bureau's old training school was just across Victoria Street at the Horticultural Hall.

After five years as RD Vic (with an office in what is now Registry), John was appointed ADS in 1958 and in the last 16 years has served frequent spells-as acting Director, first alternating with Bill Gibbs when L. J. Dwyer was overseas, and again when Bill moved into the top chair following Dwyer's death in May 1962.

He has represented the Bureau overseas at the Pacific Science Congress in New Zealand in 1949, an aviation met conference with Ralph Holmes (SRER) at Montreal in 1959, a U.S. Asian military weather symposium at Baguio in the Philippines in 1960, the 19th and 20th meetings of the South Pacific Air Transport Council at Suva in 1969 and again in 1973, and the fifth meeting of the WMO Commission for Synoptic Meteorology (now Basic Systems in Geneva during June-July 1970 with Ted Phillips.

Bureau of Meteorology