The Battle of Britain’s last known fighter “ace”
In April 1938, Paul Farnes – noting that “things were not looking good” and that war was looking likely – decided to join the Royal Navy, said The Guardian. The 19-year-old picked up an application form from a recruitment vessel moored on the Embankment near his work, and was about to fill it in when he met a young man who persuaded him that he would have “more fun” if instead he followed him into the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR). Two years later, he became one of just under 3,000 airmen to fight in the Battle of Britain. One of only three known survivors of “The Few”, who repelled the Luftwaffe in the summer of 1940, Farnes, who has died aged 101, was its only surviving ace – defined as a pilot who has destroyed five or more enemy aircraft in the air.
Paul Farnes was born in July 1918 to unmarried parents. His mother died in childbirth; his father, a member of the Australian armed forces, went home. Paul was then adopted by the nurse who’d delivered him. “I had a wonderful upbringing, just she and I together,” he said. Raised on the outskirts of London, he went to Surbiton County Grammar School and was working at Vickers, the engineering firm, when he enlisted in the RAFVR. In the next few months, he learned to fly Tiger Moth biplanes and Fairey Battles light bombers. Flying in those early days, he said, was “great fun”; in the biplanes, “you could look over the side and wave”. When war was declared, he joined 501 Squadron and in May 1940, he took part in the Battle of France, flying Hurricanes. It was, he said, a “shambles”. He had to fly to eastern France with no proper map – just a page torn from a geography book. Farnes shot down one enemy plane, and shared in the destruction of two others, before the advancing
blitzkrieg forced a retreat. Defending Britain in August 1940, he shot down two Stuka bombers, a Dornier Do 17 and a Messerschmitt Me-109E; then, on 30 September, as he was heading back to base in Surrey in a malfunctioning plane, he spotted a Junkers Ju 88 bomber coming towards him at 1,500ft. Whipping around behind it, he opened fire, bringing it down. In February 1942, he was sent to besieged Malta, where he was promoted to Squadron Leader. He remained in the RAF until 1958. He then worked in the motor industry, and ran a hotel in Worthing.
Proud to have fought in the Battle of Britain, Farnes regularly attended the RAF’s annual thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey, and was touched by the public’s growing interest in The Few. He was, he said, “very moved” when the crowd applauded as he and his comrades left the Abbey in 2015. Last year, he was the only Battle of Britain pilot present. Twice widowed, he is survived by two of his three children.