A fighter pilot in a vastly outnumbered Royal Air Force — one of the “few” hailed by Churchill — he took to the skies to help stave off a Nazi land invasion of Britain.

The last surviving pilot of the Battle of Britain has died, severing the last living link to the few thousand young men who fought the Nazi air force to a standstill amid fears that Britain might be forced to capitulate during the early months of World War II.

John ‘Paddy’ Hemingway, the last pilot who fought in the Battle of Britain, has died aged 105, severing the last living link to the most pivotal battle in our nation’s history. The Irishman, who was shot down four times during the Second World War,