“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
Winston Churchill, speaking to the valor of RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain.
John Allman (“Paddy”) Hemingway passed away this week at the age of 105. He was the last surviving pilot to fight in what has become known as the “Battle of Britain,” the heroic, months-long air defense of the British Isles in the face of a potential, full-scale Nazi invasion that Hitler had initially conceived to commence in September, 1940.
Hitler’s primary goal in attacking Britain through a campaign of bombardment was to force a negotiated peace settlement through air superiority, although a ground invasion (termed “Operation Sea Lion”) remained a last-resort possibility gamed by the Nazis throughout the summer of 1940.
As recounted by Richard Goldstein for the New York Times:
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.
Paddy Hemingway’s heroism in the skies over London and the English channel was not his first engagement with the enemy. Born in Dublin in 1919, he had enlisted in the RAF in 1938, even before Britain’s entry into the war. As reported by the Royal Air Force, at the age of 19 he had already seen action, “providing fighter cover (strafing attacks, air patrols and dogfights) to the British Expeditionary Force and other allied troops as they retreated to the beaches of Dunkirk in the face of overwhelming Nazi Blitzkrieg attacks. It became known as the ‘Battle of France’.”
German bombers used during the Battle of Britain
In an eleven-day period the squadron accounted for a confirmed total of 90 enemy aircraft; there were many more claims that could not be substantiated. On 10 May, Paddy was recorded as destroying a He-111, the following day he downed a Do-17 but his Hurricane aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire, and he had to make a forced landing. As the Germans advanced, it was clear the airfields would be overrun and the remaining pilots, aircraft and crews returned to the UK.
All told, the 85th are confirmed with shooting down 90 planes in the Battle of France. That same squadron (the 85th), then became instrumental in defending the daily attacks by Nazi bombers launched from Germany and (now-occupied) France in preparation for the mammoth potential invasion of Britain. According to the RAF, as part of the 11 Group (Fighter command) tasked with stopping the bombing onslaught preparatory to that potential invasion, Hemingway’s “logbook records, almost nonchalantly, the daily sorties he and the other pilots undertook in defense of the United Kingdom.” Those logbooks show that Hemingway’s unit would often undertake up to five separate sorties per day during the battle.
Hemingway was forced to bail out from his fighter on two occasions during the Battle of Britain, landing in both sea and marsh, only to return to the fight as the war proceeded on:
In 1941, serving with No. 85 Squadron, based at RAF Hunsdon, in a Havoc night fighter, Paddy had to bail out at 600 feet due to instrument failure in bad weather, breaking his hand on the tail section. Paddy’s parachute failed to open properly, and he was saved further injury as the chute caught on the branches of a tree. In 1945, whilst serving in the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces with 324 Wing, he was forced to bail out a fourth time. While attacking enemy forces near Ravenna in April 1945, his Spitfire was hit multiple times by anti-aircraft fire. He parachuted into enemy territory and managed to contact Italian partisans, who helped him return to his squadron.
Hemingway was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1941, and did not retire from the RAF until 1974. Despite the enormous place he and his fellow pilots enjoy in history for the now-legendary defense of their country (and implicitly, perhaps, the entire free world), he never viewed himself as a hero, just a simple soldier who did his job.
As Goldstein reports, Hemingway’s passing has not gone without remark in Great Britain. His memory was honored by the Band of the Coldstream Guards in the guard-changing ceremony this week in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace. Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, had this to say:
“Eighty years ago, the courage and determination of Paddy and all our brave RAF pilots helped bring an end to the second world war. They fearlessly flew over enemy territory to protect the UK and its allies, risking their lives.
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“Their sense of duty and service secured our freedom, and we shall never forget them.”
In the British Parliament they paid tribute to Paddy Hemingway and his fellow RAF pilots:
And there was this, from the Royal family:
“We owe so much to Paddy and his generation for our freedoms today,” William, the Prince of Wales, said on social media on Tuesday, paying tribute to Mr. Hemingway.
In its statement, the R.A.F. said of Mr. Hemingway, “He never saw his role in the Battle of Britain as anything other than doing the job he was trained to do.”
As explained here, the Battle of Britain was won thanks to a multiplicity of efforts and factors that went well beyond the pilots tasked with fighting it. But there is no doubt as to the consequences of its outcome:
Germany’s failure to defeat the RAF and secure control of the skies over southern England made invasion all but impossible. British victory in the Battle of Britain was decisive, but ultimately defensive in nature – in avoiding defeat, Britain secured one of its most significant victories of the Second World War. It was able to stay in the war and lived to fight another day.
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Four years later, the Allies would launch their invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe – Operation ‘Overlord’ – from British shores, which would prove decisive in ultimately bringing the war against Germany to an end.
I will be out tonight. Everyone have a good evening!
