John Balfour was born in Malvern, Victoria on 24 October 1892.
He was a Commonwealth public servant before the First World War. He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in August 1914 and served in various headquarters units at Gallipoli, and in France and the United Kingdom.
He joined the Australian War Records Section in June 1918. With C.E.W. Bean, he returned to Australia via Gallipoli in mid-1919. He was made a Member of the British Empire (MBE) (Military) for service during the war in June 1919. After Bean's appointment as Official Historian, Balfour joined his staff, working with him at Tuggeranong and Sydney between 1919 and 1942. He wrote biographical notes, compiled indexes to many of the volumes, checked references and acted as a general 'backup' to all the writers on the project.
Between December 1944 and September 1946 he served as a captain in the Second AIF. He was attached to MacArthur's South West Pacific Area (SWPA) headquarters, where he oversaw the disposal of records relating to the operations of the Australian military forces fighting the Japanese. He went to Manila in April 1945 and attended the Japanese surrender ceremony in September. He joined Gavin Long's Second World War official history staff in 1946. For Long, as for Bean, he performed general editorial work and compiled biographical notes. Long commended him as 'tutor of all the assistants who ... worked on volumes of this history' (1). Balfour retired from the official history in 1957 and died on 10 September 1976.
(1) Preface to To Benghazi, Canberra, 1952, p. xiii Source: AWM CP469
