The last surviving British pilot who fought in the Battle of Britain during World War II has died aged 105, the UK's Royal Air Force said.
John "Paddy" Hemingway "passed away peacefully" on Monday, the RAF said in a statement, describing his death as "the end of an era".
He 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.
Britain's 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.
Born in Dublin in 1919, Hemingway enlisted in the RAF in 1938, a year before war broke out in Europe.
In 1940, Hemingway downed a German Luftwaffe plane but his Hurricane fighter was hit by anti-aircraft fire and he had to make a forced landing, according to the air force.
He then became one of the frontline members of pilots responding to daily attacks by German aircraft, which became known as the Battle of Britain.
During intense dogfights in August 1940, Hemingway was forced to bail out of his Hurricanes twice, landing once in the sea and another time in marshland.
Hemingway later received the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) medal for bravery.
"He never considered himself a hero and often referred to himself as the 'Lucky Irishman', a man simply doing his job, like so many others of his generation," Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement.
"Their sense of duty and service secured our freedom, and we shall never forget them."
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
