In terse notations, the logbook kept by Royal Air Force fighter pilot John “Paddy” Hemingway in the summer of 1940 records the deadly struggles in the skies over England as wave after wave of German bombers sought to pound the country into capitulation.

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 Battle of Britain pilot, John "Paddy" Hemingway, has died at the age of 105. Mr Hemingway, who was originally from Dublin, joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a teenager before World War Two.