Griffith grew up in Homewood, Illinois. He joined the United States Army Air Corps in November 1941, and served in the South Pacific during World War II. He flew 189 missions in the Curtiss P-40 fighter and was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses and four Air Medals. Griffith is one of the 2006 inductees into the Lancaster, California Aerospace Walk of Honor John H. Griffith died October 21, 2011, at the Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, Grass Valley, California, from pneumonia and a dissected aorta. He was 90 years old.