John Allison Mills, Ii

John Allison Mills II, (102), passed away peacefully on May 24, 2022.

John was born on April 27, 1920 in Raleigh, NC to Walter Hartwick Mills, Sr. of Raleigh and Jessie Brown (Quinn) Mills of Rutherfordton, NC, to grandfather John Allison Mills and to great grandfather Private Wiley J. Mills, an American Civil War soldier.

John graduated from Hugh Morson High School and went on to graduate in Aeronautical Engineering at North Carolina State University in 1948.

John’s achievements in life were numerous.

In 1938, at age 18, he won first place at the Southeastern US Gasoline Powered Model Airplane Contest in Charlotte, NC. His nine-foot wingspan model plane flew 12 minutes, while the second-place flight time was 4 minutes.

In 1941, he obtained his private pilot license.

John completed ROTC, and was commissioned as Second Lieutenant from US Army Air Force Officers Candidate School, Miami Beach, FL in March 1943. He was assigned to Wright Field, Dayton, OH, as Asst. Operations Officer on flight line. Later he was assigned to Flight Research Section, to flight test American aircraft and captured German bombers. John was then promoted to First Lieutenant and reassigned to HQ Eighth Air Force, Bovingdon, England in 1944 during World War II. There he served with the Operational Engineering Section, whose duty was conducting research and development on ways and means to make Eighth Air Force bombers and fighters more effective in combat and to safely return in event of battle damage.

In July 1945, he was reassigned to Wright Field as Special Projects Officer for the All Weather Flying Division. He designed and built all-terrain aircraft crash-rescue vehicles to reach downed aircraft and provide crew rescue in inaccessible crash areas. The AWF Division also developed the first totally computerized-flight airplane which flew from the US and landed in England without any crew assistance.

Promoted to Captain, he resigned his commission in the Air Force in 1947 to continue his Aeronautical Engineering degree at NC State.

In 1949, he took a position in the Pentagon as civilian Consultant to the Commanding General of the Air Force Materiel Division. He became assistant to the Chief of Aircraft and Missile Branch in the Production Engineering Division. He was then promoted to Civilian Chief of Aircraft and Missile Branch. John was instrumental in the production of the first twin-engine high performance supersonic fighter, the McDonnell F-101, which was a photo-recon aircraft capable of air-to-air refueling, reaching anywhere in Russia with atomic power. It also recaptured the World’s speed record from England.

Resigning from the Pentagon in 1955, he moved to Clearwater, Florida and launched Edar Marine, a fiberglass boat building company which designed V-bottom recreational boats, that later evolved into the largest marine supply retail chain in the Southeastern United States. He co-designed and built the Paper Tiger, which won the Southern Ocean Racing Conference in 1961 and 1962.

In 1988, he began designing and developing simple tools to help elementary math students make precision math-related drawings. These enabled students to measure and understand “volumetrics” with an objective to introduce the fundamentals of trigonometry in elementary school.

In 1997, he invented and patented a perspective drawing instrument which enabled six-year-olds to plot points in space and make three-dimensional math-related drawings. It was selected by the US Patent Office for display at the 25th Annual Inventions Exposition at Epcot, Disney World, FL, in 1998, as being one of the most promising inventions of 1997.

In May 1999, this Perspective Drawing Instrument was displayed at the International Invention and New Products Exposition in Pittsburgh, PA, where it won a Gold Medal for Best Educational category. He also won a Bronze Medal in the Arts & Crafts category, and received a special award for Innovation in Education.

From 2001, at age 81, John began spending one afternoon each week as a volunteer teacher at the Greenville Montessori School, NC. He incorporated trigonometry lessons into the curriculum which would ultimately be incorporated into his trigonometry teaching book for all ages.

John retired in April 2016 at age 96.

John was preceded in death by sister, Myrtle Mills Hilton, brothers, Robert Edward Mills and Walter “Hardy” Mills Jr. and son, John A Mills III.

He is survived by his daughter, Jessica L Mills of Pigeon Forge, TN, and brother, William B Mills of Thomasville, NC.

A graveside memorial service will be held on Saturday, April 22, 2023, at 10:00 AM, at the historic Oakwood Cemetery, in Raleigh, NC. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made in his honor to Oakwood Cemetery.

His extraordinary life and memory will remain in our hearts forever.