On the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, Declan Hughes pays tribute to our brave Irish pilots and salutes Group Captain John Hemingway who passed away this year at the age of 105.

 

Hitler, the man who set Europe alight, took his own life on 30 April 1945, and within a week, on 7 May of that year, Germany surrendered. Following closely on the heels of that capitulation, Victory in Europe Day was declared on May 8. This year 2025, it will be 80 years since those remarkable events, and as we hope for a new peace in a changing Europe, we have cause to acknowledge the youthful adventures of one particular man.

So, future Table Quiz question on WW2 History: when did the last RAF Battle of Britain Fighter Pilot, the last survivor of Churchill’s “The Few”. pass away? Churchill himself spot-lit these men in his oft-quoted speech: “Never in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many, to so few”. Inspiring a generation, these words still echo down the decades.

The Battle of Britain was won largely in skies over the South-East of England, and particularly over the hop-gardens of Kent. Many of these gardens hold memories for those Irish who’ve toiled in them over the years – not least of all myself, who spent over a decade on a hop farm, working beneath blue Kentish skies.

On the farm I worked on, the generation in the gardens while the Battle raged above their heads in summer and autumn of 1940, could easily recall those frightful days. However, occasional remarks from these individuals consistently made light of their everyday experiences.

Ted, my old colleague, used very seldomly reminisce about hop-picking during the Battle of Britain. However, as masters of understatement go, his most revealing comment was to the effect that “…it was alright, but you had to remember not to look up or you might get somethin’ in the eye!”

By October 1940, the Luftwaffe had failed to overcome the courage of those RAF Pilots, who very much fought as underdogs. As August became September that year, Kent hop-gardens filled with families, many of them making extra badly needed income during their annual ‘holidays’. It was long held that parts of London, in particular, used to empty out every September, with special trains laid on to assist communities relocate for the month to help with the hop harvest. As the Battle of Britain reached its autumnal climax over their heads during September-October 1940, the possibility of getting “somethin’ in the eye”, never made Londoners, or others, hesitate.

Among the pilots in the skies above their heads, were a smattering of South Africans, Canadians, Poles and others, including a small but fearsome collection of Irish who believed passionately in the anti-Nazi cause, and in testing their resolve as front-line fighter Pilots.

According to the RAF Museum in the UK, some 15,000 Irish volunteered for the RAF alone during World War Two, with around 1,300 casualties. This would include ground crew keeping fighters operational – both men and hardware.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own