The last surviving pilot who fought in the Battle of Britain during World War II has died aged 105, the UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF) said.
John “Paddy” Hemingway “passed away peacefully” on Monday, the RAF said late that evening.
Vanguard reports that it described his death as “the end of an era.”
Hemingway was among the pilots known as “The Few” for their role in the seminal 1940 air battle that defended Britain against major attacks from Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe.
British wartime prime minister Winston Churchill coined the term.
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” he said of the men’s sacrifice.
Heir-to-the-throne Prince William and Prime Minister Keir Starmer were among those to lead tributes to Hemingway, who won a medal for bravery.
“We owe so much to Paddy and his generation for our freedoms today,” Prince William wrote in a statement shared on social media on Tuesday.
“Their bravery and sacrifice will always be remembered. We shall never forget them.”
Born in 1919 in Dublin, Ireland, which was then a part of the United Kingdom, Hemingway enlisted in the RAF in 1938, a year before war broke out in Europe.
