I was shot down in Battle of Britain & leapt from cockpit as it nosedived at 400mph – now my plane is being rebuilt
AGED 103, Battle of Britain hero John Hemingway is the last of The Few.
And today The Sun can reveal how the Hawker Hurricane fighter that Irishman John, known as Paddy, was shot down in 82 years ago is being rebuilt in his honour.
In the summer of 1940, 2,937 RAF pilots fought daily battles against the Nazi Luftwaffe over the south of England to prevent Hitler’s invasion.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill coined the phrase The Few for the hero fliers.
At the height of the battle, in August, 21-year-old Pilot Officer Paddy, of 85 Squadron, was shot down twice in a single week.
The first time he bailed out and landed in the North Sea, where he was rescued by fishermen.
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On his second “brolly hop” — the pilots’ nickname for a parachute drop — he leapt out of his fighter at 18,000ft over the Thames Estuary at Fobbing Creek, Essex.
His plane, P3966, nosedived into Pitsea Marshes at 400 miles an hour, its metal wings ripped off as it buried itself nearly 40ft in the ground.
Now the wreckage has been dug out of the clay and is being rebuilt by modern-day pilot Tom Smith, 27, and a team of engineers at Elmsett Airfield, Suffolk.
In two years’ time, when Hurricane 3966 flies again, the plane will be priceless.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Paddy says: “I’m really looking forward to the day P3966 will fly again.
"I’ve never forgotten that day when I was shot down over Pitsea Marshes.”
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It was just before 3pm on August 26, 1940, that RAF observers spotted more than 100 enemy Dornier bombers, escorted by Messerschmitt fighters, over Kent and heading with orders to bomb airfields in Essex.
At 85 Squadron’s base at Croydon, South London, battle-hardened Paddy ran to his Hurricane.
He says: “My experiences in air combat convinced me that the best method was to stay busy among the enemy bombers, shooting as many targets as possible, not waiting to confirm any results beyond the most obvious ones.
“I remember diving ever steeper to attack as the approaching planes flew directly towards and below us.
“I managed to get in the briefest of bursts of fire before scudding closely under the blue belly of a Dornier 215.
Still get flashbacks
“As I pulled hard around to try to follow, the sky seemed empty of bombers.
"Then I started the silliest thing I’ve ever done. I pulled around to have another go.
"Of course, as soon as I did, the Dornier gunners rattled away at me and that was it — bang! Almost immediately I was hit in the engine and behind the cockpit by cannon fire.”
With the cockpit filling with smoke, Paddy thought his aeroplane was on fire.
He adds: “It certainly felt like it was. Getting shot down makes the cockpit very smelly and hot very quickly.
"Your training instincts take over and you have to get out of the cockpit quickly before you burn.
“Fate was not democratic. New pilots with just a few hours in Hurricanes did not have the instincts of us more experienced pilots and were very vulnerable in combat.
"For that reason, many did not last long. Luckily for me the hood opened easily.
"We’d heard tales that the German fighters were shooting down parachutists in the air.
“The cloud tops were about 8,000ft. I did a delayed drop as far as the cloud before pulling the rip cord and opening my parachute.”
The local Home Guard found Paddy as he landed and he was safely back with his squadron by 10.30pm that night.
He says: “I was OK but I paid for it because my sinuses just about killed me for four days afterwards.
“I think we lost 11 pilots that time. I still get flashbacks of smoke and burning rubber.”
For more than 40 years P3966 lay buried — only a dip in the earth giving a clue as to what lay beneath.
In the 1980s an attempt was made to dig it up but it was found to be too deep.
Then, in 2019, a team finally pulled out all of P3966, including the engine, eight Browning machine guns and the control column, which was set to “fire”.
Accountant and pilot Tom Smith bought the wreckage, and the Civil Aviation Authority has given him permission to have the plane rebuilt to airworthy standard.
Only one Hurricane that took part in the Battle of Britain is still flying today, so P3966 will be a truly historic plane when it takes to the air once more.
Tom recently travelled to see Paddy at his Dublin care home to tell him that his old plane will reach for the skies again.
Paddy, who rose to become a Group Captain in the RAF, says: “I was a bit disbelieving at first. I last remember being hot and smelly in the cockpit before the plane crashed and now the restoration of P3966 is really happening.”
I have had some staggering luck
Tom adds: “Nowadays when we see Spitfires or Hurricanes hurtling around we get very excited about the aircraft because of the speed and the sound.
“But it is easy to forget that they were war machines and that people died in them.
“That sense is particularly strong when you see the wreckage with bullet holes in it.
“The raw truth is that people didn’t come back and sometimes not because of the enemy.
"Sometimes it was through accidents or living with the constant state of anxiety.
"It was an honour to meet Paddy and tell him we’re rebuilding his plane. He was quite amazed.”
Last week RAF top brass including Air Marshall Sir Richard Knighton travelled to Dublin to pay tribute to the last living Battle of Britain pilot.
Air Marshall Knighton said: “Paddy deserves our deep gratitude for all he did to preserve the freedoms we now enjoy.”
There is also to be a life-size statue of Paddy in his wartime days as a pilot at the Battle of Britain museum near Dover.
The veteran says, modestly: “I am here because I have had some staggering luck and fought alongside great pilots in magnificent aircraft with ground crew in the best air force in the world.
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"During the war, all my closest friends were killed and I am sad about that. I was lucky to survive and good health has kept me going. I’m not ill, just old.
“If being ‘the last’ draws attention in a good way to the Battle of Britain pilots and the rest of the RAF at that time, then I’m happy.”