King Charles to pay emotional tribute to flying ace and one of Britain's oldest WW2 heroes
In a heartfelt tribute King Charles will honour a WWII and charity hero whose legacy soars beyond the skies, marking a milestone in humanitarian history.
King Charles will pay an emotional tribute to the flying ace who founded the world’s largest humanitarian air service. RAF hero Jack Hemmings - one of Britain’s oldest World War 2 veterans - died in January aged 103.
Tomorrow the monarch will celebrate the 80th Anniversary of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) by unveiling the charity’s new Cessna 208 Caravan aircraft that will deliver aid to remote regions in Papua New Guinea. Jack was Squadron Leader of 353 RAF Sqn, based in Calcutta between 1942 and 1946, and later launched MAF. His lifetime of sacrifice, service and devotion to duty was due to be recognised with a personal audience with the King just weeks before VE Day celebrations mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War 2.
Charles will now honour Jack at a sombre celebration at RAF Northolt, where he will meet members of the Papua New Guinea community to mark the 50th anniversary of independence.
The High Commissioner of Papua New Guinea, Her Excellency Betty Palaso, will present some of the country’s Rugby League players, including Judah Rimbu, Liam Horne, Sylvester Namo and Jeremiah Simbiken, who play for Castleford Tigers in the Super League.
The King will view the new Cessna which will be positioned next to a 1930s de Havilland Dragon Rapide bi-plane, the same model used by the charity to establish flight operations in Sudan in 1950, when missions were conducted across uncharted territories with little more than a map and compass.
In August last year, Jack from Horam, East Sussex, was a guest of honour at the Eastbourne International Airshow, where the Red Arrows were laying on a birthday flypast.
He joked: “For a very brief moment, I knew how the King must feel. It was a marvellous spectacle.”
During the war, he was charged with protecting the Bay of Bengal using Lockheed Hudson and Dakota aircraft.
His flying career included performing the first British humanitarian survey of Central Africa in 1948 where, alongside D-Day RAF hero Stuart King, he flew a wooden Miles Gemini aircraft from Croydon to Nairobi.
The result of the pair’s pioneering sortie was to set up the MAF charity which today operates 118 aircraft in more than 25 low-income countries to deliver aid, medical care and emergency evacuations in isolated locations.
His wife, Helen Ellis, with whom he had two children, Adrian and Elizabeth, died in 1993. Elizabeth died in Canada in 2010 with early onset Alzheimer’s.
He married Kate Roy in 2003, who survives him.
Speaking to the Express, Jack said: “Watching the Red Arrows is not just a spectacle, but it’s the skill of the pilots that I really admire. It’s just wonderful.
“When I first joined the RAF in 1940, I thought, ‘If I am going to fight in a war, I may as well do it sitting down.’ Getting into an aeroplane gives a sense of pleasant expectation – I’ve never got into one and regretted it. I love flying because it gives a feeling of detachment from all the problems in the world – and there are a lot of problems.
“During wartime, aircraft were used for destruction; but it has always been my desire that they be used for good. That is what MAF does today, it is more than a bright idea that stayed in someone’s head, it has grown exponentially to become the Good Samaritan of the air.”
In 2022, Jack returned to the controls of a wooden Miles Gemini aircraft - the same model he flew to launch MAF almost 80-years ago with engineer Mr King, who died in August 2020, at 98.
Dad-of-two Jack, who continued flying well into his centenary, was awarded the Air Force Cross for “exemplary gallantry while flying” and became the oldest Briton to fly in a Spitfire when he took to the skies above Biggin Hill, the famous old Battle of Britain fighter station in Kent.
MAF is the world’s largest humanitarian air service and operates in countries including the Commonwealth nations of Papua New Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Arnhem Land in Australia.
Its fights take food to markets, deliver building equipment, transport teachers, and carry out lifesaving medical evacuations.
