https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg1z42pkj8o

The last Battle of Britain fighter pilot passes away.

Something like less than 10 Irish poilets flew in the battle of Britain, and he was the very last one .

A sad day, but we will remember the few.

RIP Group Captain Hemingway.

I just read about him and he had four crashes where he had to bail out or survived a crash. He led a charmed life. I would have imagined he was a member of the "Caterpillar Club." To join the club you had to have bailed out of an aircraft and survived by parachuting out, thus the reference to the silk used to manufacture the parachute. When I was growing up a school friend's father showed me his club badge which also had flames around the Caterpillar indicating he had been shot down in flames

The greatest generation.
RIP.

It’s a shame there is so little response to this story. I suppose the younger generation don’t see it as relevant any more.

God Bless this man and all the courageous people who fought alongside him in the face of tyranny.

Will hopefully never be repeated, and is so poignant in our world today .. when will the old and powerful learn that we are stronger together and to give the new generation chance to grow and flourish … violence solves so little.

We should thank the brave few for our freedom and the masses should remember them always .

‘To those who provided our freedom’

I read his story yesterday. The amount of crashes that he survived was amazing. If he was a cat he would of used all his nine lives plus some! He had a remarkable life, rip.

karatekid wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 18, 2025 11:44 pm

It’s a shame there is so little response to this story. I suppose the younger generation don’t see it as relevant any more.

It’s a very long time ago now - for someone in their mid-20s now it’s as far back as the Boer war was for someone born in the mid-1950s.

The baby boomer generation grew up with parents who lived WW2 first hand, many in combat. That link to the past doesn’t exist anymore. For the younger generation it’s just pages in the history books.

Bow wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 19, 2025 9:52 am

It’s a very long time ago now - for someone in their mid-20s now it’s as far back as the Boer war was for someone born in the mid-1950s.

The baby boomer generation grew up with parents who lived WW2 first hand, many in combat. That link to the past doesn’t exist anymore. For the younger generation it’s just pages in the history books.

I obviously take your point, Bow. However, I have made my sons aware of those pilots and of all the different nationalities involved just as they know all the nationalities of the men involved in D-Day. And I believe firmly they will tell their children.

Given the present context we absolutely have to inform the young independently of history books.

ecc wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 19, 2025 11:32 am

I obviously take your point, Bow. However, I have made my sons aware of those pilots and of all the different nationalities involved just as they know all the nationalities of the men involved in D-Day. And I believe firmly they will tell their children.

Given the present context we absolutely have to inform the young independently of history books.

Making people aware doesn't give them any true feeling for it that last generations had. Naturally things will become more distant with time. It doesn't take anything away from the people involved, they didn't do it to be remembered by people nearly a hundred years later.

karatekid wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 18, 2025 11:44 pm

It’s a shame there is so little response to this story. I suppose the younger generation don’t see it as relevant any more.

And what about the lack of response from the older generation?

Bow wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 19, 2025 9:52 am

The baby boomer generation grew up with parents who lived WW2 first hand, many in combat. That link to the past doesn’t exist anymore. For the younger generation it’s just pages in the history books.

Im certainly not the baby boomer generation, im very late gen X, my Dad was in Japan at the tail end of WW2 and his brother (my uncle obviously) was in Burma. Then again he was into his 60s when I was born but I was certainly brought up differently to my friends who had parents in their 20s. So that link to the past is alive and well in me! My grandfather (who i never met) was in the trenches during ww1 and I still have his war diaries.

Truly the last of a generation.
I’ve got my grandad’s war medals and cap badge displayed in a picture frame from his time in the NE Lancs Regiment during the First World War, when he survived being buried alive at the Battle of the Somme, and consider them a family treasure.
We have to carry on remembering.

There is a great Obit in The Times if you can get behind the pay wall. He actually crash landed near Burnley on one of the 4 occasions he was shot down.

Truly the greatest generation. RIP.