Hemingway’s Italian saviour
Group Captain John “Paddy” Hemingway, who had been the last surviving Battle of Britain pilot and who died at the age of 105 on 17 March 2025, led a charmed life on several battlefronts during which he was shot down four times. The fourth occasion was in 1945 when he was in command of No. 43 Squadron in Italy.
On April 3rd, with the Germans in retreat near Ravenna, Hemingway destroyed a truck with his bomb and returned to strafe other vehicles. His Spitfire hit by ground fire, the aircraft began to fail. Hemingway climbed to 2,000 ft and bailed out.
On landing, he evaded pursuing Germans and reached a farmhouse where he was cared for by partisans. He was disguised in peasant clothes and guided past German positions by a little girl. Back at Allied lines an armoured car returned him to his squadron.
Hemingway recalled that he was more frightened for the child’s life than his own safety. He never forgot her.
