An Irishman who is the last known surviving fighter pilot from the Battle of Britain has celebrated his 105th birthday at a ceremony in Dublin.
Group Captain John"Paddy" Hemingway, who was a member of the group Sir Winston Churchill described as"the few", attended an event to mark his birthday at the British embassy in the south of the city.
Mr Hemingway made a short speech at the reception, saying:"I can't talk very much as my breath doesn't allow me. But thanks so much for being here. It's made my day."Born in Dublin in 1919, he joined the RAF in 1938, and was one of the young pilots that took part in the Battle of France. Mr Hemingway's logbook records up to five daily sorties he and the other pilots undertook in defence of the United Kingdom.
His son, Brian Hemingway, said:"I think my father was born in a time where flying was very glamorous, it is a wonderful thing to do. As an 18-year-old he joined the RAF to have a lot of fun, travel the world and of course the war intervened and he became a fighter pilot."Imagine an 18 or 19-year-old today getting into a machine and fly it at 300mph, attacking people in dogfights which lasts seconds and it was absolute chaos.
"People should think about what it was like to sit in a Hurricane and go up every morning, sometimes five times a day, to find the enemy and shoot them when you're exhausted." The portraits will be auctioned at a later date, with some of the proceeds donated to Trinity Nursing Home in Dublin, where Mr Hemingway resides.
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