Passing of the last of “The Few”
I’m a little late to this because I don’t monitor the UK media daily but on the 17th of March 2025, a final chapter in a crucial battle of military history came to an end with the death of 105-year-old Group Captain John “Paddy” Hemingway of the Royal Air Force who flew Hurricanes during the Battle of Britain. Originally from Dublin, Ireland he joined the RAF in March 1938 and saw constant action during the Battle of France, the Battle of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain where he was shot down three times and in 1941 was award the Distinguished Flying Cross. He served as an air traffic controller during the D-Day invasion at Normandy, France and served out the remainder of the war in Italy where he was shot down a fourth time! He remained in service with the RAF rising through the ranks to Group Captain when he retired in 1969.
The term “The Few” quickly became an appellation of endearment given to the 2,927 fighter pilots of the RAF (and the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy) who fought and successfully defended Great Britain from the onslaught of the German Luftwaffe in the summer and autumn of 1940. It was an endearment endowed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in his speech on August 20, 1940, to the House of Commons given at the height of the Battle of Britain where, praising the brave and heroic efforts of the fighter pilots said, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”. From thence on the term “The Few” came to represent all the pilots Churchill referred to and it has stuck ever since.
Whilst 80% of The Few were British, the RAF’s pilot ranks during the Battle of Britain were joined by pilots from the conquered nations of Europe: France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland and Czechoslovakia as well as Britain’s former colonies: Canada, Australia, South Africa, Rhodesia and 135 pilots from New Zealand including the most prominent, Air Vice Marshall Keith Park from Auckland who was the head of 11 Group, the geographical division of RAF Fighter Command that covered the vital airfields in the counties south of London which bore the brunt of the fighting during the Battle of Britain.
Whilst the RAF was ultimately victorious in the Battle, it was in fact a close-run thing with the outcome of the battle closely contested for two months as the Luftwaffe mercilessly bombed the airfields of the south of England for 59 consecutive days. Whilst the installation of radar and the sophisticated defense network of regional plotting rooms used radar’s findings to guide the defenders to the incoming German bombers and fighters with near pinpoint accuracy, nonetheless the toll of lost Spitfires and Hurricanes and pilots from the airfield bombings was outstripping the ability of the British to build new fighter planes and train new pilots. Had the Germans persisted with this tactic, they may well have won the battle. The iconic 1969 movie “The Battle of Britain” accurately details this knife edge situation and of the circumstances surrounding how the battle fortuitously shifted to the Blitz of London after a Heinkel bomber crew, lost over the docks of London, dropped unused bombs on the city prompting Churchill to order a retaliatory raid undertaken by 95 small Wellington bombers (then the RAF’s largest bomber) on Berlin. Whilst the ordinance dropped on Berlin was light and the damage to Nazi Party HQ and the Reichstag was minimal, Hitler was so incensed that he ordered the Luftwaffe to switch its huge air raids from the RAF fighter squadrons to the city of London, specifically the docks and the East End. Whilst 25,000 civilians were to die in the Blitz and vast swaths of the city were leveled to rubble, the Blitz not only failed to break the resolve of the British people but the indefatigable head of Fighter Command (Air Chief Marshall Hugh Dowding) was able to use the respite from the bombing of his airfields to rebuild his shattered fleet of fighters and train more pilots and through the late summer and autumn of 1940, gradually the RAF clawed back supremacy of the skies over England resulting in the Luftwaffe sustaining crippling losses such that Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion (the plan to invade England) and began to shift his sights to the planning of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. This tactical blunder cost Hitler the Battle of Britain and an undefeated UK was able to anchor the eventual Allied fight back and then invasion of Europe in 1944.
Victory in the Battle of Britain was a crucial chapter of the Second World War as it ensured Britain was not invaded. The seeming miraculous nature of the deliverance and Churchill’s shepherding of Britain on to victory with the US and the Soviets means The Battle of Britain and “the Few” hold an inestimable special place in the hearts of the British to this day.
John Allman Hemingway 19 July 1919 to 17 March 2025 – RIP