Blitz Bureau
THE last surviving Battle of Britain pilot, John “Paddy” Hemingway, has passed away at the age of 105, as per a BBC report. Hemingway, who was originally from Dublin, joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a teenager before World War 11, died on March 17.
At 21, he was a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, a three-month period when air force personnel defended the skies against a large-scale assault by the German air force, the Luftwaffe.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer paid tribute to Hemingway, saying his courage and those of all RAF pilots had “helped end WWII and secure our freedom”. Those who fought in the three-and-a-half-month battle came to be known as “The Few” after a speech by the then Prime Minister Winston Churchill. “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” he said of their sacrifices in battle.
In a statement, the RAF said that Hemingway had “passed away peacefully” on March 17. John ‘Paddy’ Hemingway was the last surviving member of ‘The Few’ The pilot’s squadron shot down 90 enemy aircraft during an 11-day period in May 1940, and provided fighter cover during the Battle of France. During the war, Hemingway was shot down four times.
During dogfights – or one-on-one aerial combats – in August 1940, Hemingway was forced to bail out of his Hurricane single-seat fighter on two occasions, landing in the sea off the coast of Essex and in marshland.
The wreckage of his Hurricane was recovered in 2019 with the control column and the gun-button still set to “fire”.
In July 1941, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross – awarded to RAF personnel for an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty while flying on active operations. On the way to receive his medal from the King, he was forced to escape from a Blenheim aircraft, which crashed during take-off.
