Group Captain John “Paddy” Hemingway, DFC, AE, an Irishman who served in the British Royal Air Force (RAF) during the 1940 Battle of Britain, died Monday, St. Patrick’s Day, at the age of 105. Hemingway was the last surviving of “The Few” participants in the epic air campaign. The summer of 1940 saw the outnumbered RAF stymie the German Luftwaffe’s attempts to establish air superiority over England in advance of a German invasion that never came.
Hemingway joined the RAF in March 1938, entered flight training, and was named a pilot officer on March 7, 1939. Flying Hawker Hurricanes, he destroyed two German bombers on May 10 and May 11, 1940, over Europe and made a forced landing near Maastricht, the Netherlands due to damage. He made his way back to England to participate in the evacuation of Dunkirk, flying top cover as the British evacuated their forces from a defeated France via a flotilla consisting largely of small civilian boats.
During the Battle of Britain (officially defined as lasting from July through October 1940), he served with RAF No. 253 and No. 85 Squadrons and damaged a Messerschmitt 109 on September 3. He achieved notoriety when he was shot down over the Thames Estuary, and again over Eastchurch, surviving both times and making him 85 Squadron’s first to be “lost” over England.
Later in the war, he was shot down a fourth and final time while flying a Spitfire with No. 43 Squadron in Italy in 1945. In June last year, he met with the daughter of the then-young Italian girl who, he said, saved his life by hiding him from the Germans after he was shot down. The RAF called his passing this week, “the end of an era.”
Hemingway’s son Michael wrote a song to honor his father titled, “Hymn for a Humble Hero.” Its lyrics conclude with, “It’s getting late, and I must go now; The sun has set, it’s time to fly; All my friends are waiting for me; In the home we call the sky.”
