Posted on 01/29/2020 4:37:51 PM PST by NRx
The last fighter ace of the Battle of Britain has died, leaving only two of The Few alive.
Wing Commander Paul Farnes DFM, died peacefully at his home in Hampshire on Tuesday morning at the age of 101.
One of 3,000 Allied airmen who fought in the Battle of Britain, Mr Farnes was the last surviving ace — pilots credited with bringing down five or more enemy aircraft.
His death leaves only two living members of the so-called Few, the heroic RAF pilots who defended Britain’s skies against Nazi invasion during the Second World War.
A supporter of the Battle of Britain Memorial Trust, Mr Farnes was the last airman fit enough to attend the annual Memorial Day earlier this year.
During the war he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal, the highest honour given to non-officers.
“You could never make friends during the battle because they didn’t last long enough,” he said in 2018.
“It was nothing unusual for a chap to turn up at the squadron and be killed the same day.”
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Never has so much been owed, by so many, to so few.
God bless.
Some of the greatest heroes in history. Thank you, sir.
Winston Churchill, 20 August, 1940, House of Commons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_was_so_much_owed_by_so_many_to_so_few
Thanks for your heroic service...RIP...
He was 21 years old in 1940.
RIP and a Hand Salute, Sir.
I weep for the West. Heroes of my childhood were Pappy Boyington, Richard Bong and Eddie Rickenbacker.
I truly admired air aces, even the tales of the Red Baron and Adolph Galland from the German side.
It took such incredible skill, bravery and luck of a magnitude I knew I would never possess.
Now we have no more heroes that are military in nature. The media won’t report them, our CMOH winners are not household names and their tales are not legendary like Alvin York or Audie Murphy.
Hey though, Rihanna and Jay-Z are well known to the young people.
SACRED to the MEMORY of WC Paul Farnes, who has been promoted to ETERNAL GLORY.
May he REST IN PEACE.
Yours, TMN78247
USA, Retired
Rest peacefully., sir.
What a cutting edge scary time that must have been.
RIP.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.”
George S.
I wonder what he thought of where his beloved country has come to? Quite the contrast between the war years and now.
I am reading “Madame Fourcade”.... what the British and French did in intelligence operations is amazing...
one would think after trying to bomb someone’s country, and being knocked out of the sky and captured fair-and-square, common manners (and self-preservation) would dictate you would at least shake the man’s hand.
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