Born in Springfield, Massachusetts on 7 August 1918, John Lolos was the son of Greek immigrants. His parents were Peloponnesians, both from Arcadia prefecture in southern Greece. Specifically, his father Spyros Lolos came from Lagadia, a village 66km north of Tripoli, while his mother Melpomeni Paparrigopoulou was born in the village of Daphne. Spyros Lolos' father (John's grandfather) was a builder and stonemason, one of the most common trades in the area. Moreover, the reputation of the Lagadians as stonemasons and builders of bridges, churches, houses, etc. was well known. However, Spyros did not want to follow his father's hard and difficult profession for the rest of his life. His search for a better future led him to America for the first time in 1903, at the age of 20. He often returned to Greece, however, and it was on one of these trips that he met Melpomene, whom he eventually married. The newlyweds remained in Greece until the birth of their first child, a daughter they named Eleni. Finally, a few months after her birth, they decided to emigrate permanently to the USA, having already secured hospitality and accommodation from a first cousin of Spyros, Giannis Doulchinos. There, Spyros Lolos studied chiropractic and became an outstanding professional, achieving professional success and social recognition as a respected member of the Greek community in Springfield and beyond. However, he never forgot the hardships he had experienced, and so he often helped newly arrived Greek immigrants, mainly from Lagadia, to settle into a home, but also to find work in the wider area. As a result, there is still a street named "Lagadia Street" in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, a town near Springfield. The couple had a total of seven children, John being the only boy in the family as he had six sisters. In order of birth, the Lolos children were: Helen, Coula, Bessie, John, Mary, Johanna and Emily. John graduated from Springfield Technical High School in 1936 and went to work for the More Drop Forging Company. This was one of the largest factories in the area, producing a wide range of tools. In February 1941 he was recruited by the Hartford Ordnance District and assigned to Colt's Firearms Hartford in Connecticut as an inspector. In this special weapons and ammunition manufacturing company, Lolos was responsible for the proper observance of the quality control process for materials used in the manufacture of ammunition, but also for solving technical problems in various rifles, machine guns and 37mm cannons. At the same time, however, he became fascinated by flying and aeroplanes, and the idea of becoming a pilot began to excite him more and more. In May 1941, he began private pilot training at Springfield Airport. There he trained in small Piper Cub aircraft and, after 40 hours of flying, received his pilot's licence. At the same time, however, he completed his studies and passed his exams, earning the necessary degree to enlist in the USAAF in January 1942, exactly one month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Aviation Cadet training programme was demanding and difficult and lasted nine months. Despite this, John Lolos successfully completed all of the primary, basic and advanced training courses and on 9 October 1942 he graduated as a pilot with the rank of Second Lieutenant and proudly received "his wings". It was now his turn to be assigned to a fighter squadron for operational training. His first transfer was to the 348th Fighter Group, then based at Westover Field, Massachusetts, where the unit received its first P-47Bs and P-47Cs.

During his training John had two accidents, but fortunately no injuries. On the afternoon of 19 November 1942, as John was coming in for a landing after a tiring flight, he forgot to lower the landing gear and crashed! It was a common mistake made by many young pilots, as landing is probably the most difficult and stressful part of a flight, but it could well be fatal! To make matters worse, Captain Moore, the formation leader who had landed first, was trying to talk to him on his aircraft radio at the same time as the controller in the tower was shouting at him to abort the landing. The fact that two people were trying to talk to him on the radio at the same time caused confusion on the frequency, with the young pilot anxiously trying to understand who was talking to him and what they were saying. So anxious was Lolos that he did not see the red light that the control tower had switched on, nor did he hear the sound of the horn that was built into the exterior of the plane. Finally, the Thunderbolt hit the runway on its belly and crawled for several metres with an eerie noise. As the P-47C came to a stop, Captain Moore again asked John on the radio if he was OK and what had gone wrong. Shocked and angry at himself, John simply replied that he had not lowered the wheels. The aircraft suffered minor damage to the engine radiator, some damage to the underside of the fuselage and wings, while all four propeller blades were twisted. A few days later, during a night training flight in formation with other aircraft, it "lost" its engine due to a drop in oil pressure. The fact that he was flying over the city of Providence made it impossible to abandon the P-47, as a crash into a residential area would have resulted in human casualties. Finally, after a perilous flight, he managed to reach the airport, where he made a dead stick landing. Enraged by his misfortune, he left the cockpit for the second time in as many days and began kicking and cursing his plane. When he finally calmed down, he walked away with only a small cut over his left eye. Flights continued without incident for the next few weeks. On the 9th of February 1943, Lolos and his colleagues were nearing the end of a three-month training period on the P-47C, they had now accumulated some 180 hours of flying time on the type and their confidence had naturally soared. That day, John was in the Thunderbolt's cockpit preparing for a local training flight from Westover Field to Green Field, Rhode Island. The route passed over his hometown of Springfield, so he decided to make a small addition to the flight plan. He would fly over his neighbourhood as a surprise to his family! According to his relatives and himself, on the first pass of the Thunderbolt, the neighbours came out to see what was happening. As the pilot gained altitude, he looked out into the yard of his house, but did not see any of his family coming out. For a moment he was disappointed, but being stubborn, he decided to try a second pass. Unfortunately, what he did not know was that his whole family was not at home at that moment! His father was at work, his younger sisters were at school and the older ones had gone shopping with his mother. The second passage was even deeper than the first, and the roar of the engine filled the neighbourhood. Most of the frightened neighbours thought the plane flying overhead was going to fall on their houses! As John recounted years later, on his third and final pass, he flew so low that a neighbour probably saw the code letters on his plane, or the serial number in the tail, and reported him to the authorities. When his parents later learned of their son's 'achievements', they were at first startled and frightened, but eventually took a rather humorous view of the incident. However, the Commander-in-Chief of the New York Air Force was not joking when he signed the fine imposed on him a month later! The episode was written in "black letters" in the pages of family history, and when they would get together from time to time to reminisce and discuss the old days, the veteran pilot would smile like a child who had made a mischief. When his daughter Joanne once asked him if he regretted what he had done after the fine and if he would do it again, he smiled at her and replied excitedly: "Yes, I would do it again!"