John “Paddy” Hemingway, Last Surviving Pilot of the Battle of Britain, Dies at 105

Europe|John A. Hemingway, Last Survivor of the Battle of Britain, Dies at 105

Addressing the British House of Commons in August 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill paid tribute to the pilots of the Royal Air Force who were staving off an impending German invasion of the British Isles in what would be known as the Battle of Britain.

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” Churchill proclaimed.

When John A. Hemingway died in Dublin on Monday at 105 — the Royal Air Force announced his death — he was the last known survivor of the “few,” nearly 3,000 pilots and crew who saved Britain in the early stages of World War II.

Mr. Hemingway, who was known as Paddy, piloted Hurricane fighters in the battle, which took place in the skies above Britain between July 10 and Oct. 31, 1940.

Hitler had planned a September 1940 invasion of the British Isles, known as Operation Sea Lion. But he postponed it indefinitely when the R.A.F. — vastly outnumbered at the height of battle, with 749 fighter aircrafts compared with the Luftwaffe’s 2,550 — beat back German bombers and fighters, foiling his quest to establish the air supremacy that Germany needed to support invading ground troops. However, the Blitz, Germany’s bombing of London and other British cities, extended into the spring of 1941.

“Britain, facing a Continent dominated by her enemies, prepared for a fight to the death,” The New York Times had reported that June.

Flying over France, Britain and Italy in World War II, Mr. Hemingway was shot down four times between 1940 and 1945. He received Britain’s Distinguished Flying Cross in July 1941 for downing and damaging German planes.