Jack Hemmings AFC, former RAF Squadron Leader and pioneering co-founder of Christian aviation charity MAF, died earlier this year at the age of 103.

Jack, who passed away peacefully in his sleep on 24 January 2025, is believed to be the oldest pilot to have flown a World War II Spitfire at the age of 102.

Despite some hair-raising experiences during the war, Jack regarded his time in the RAF as being one of the most important periods of his life. Stationed in India with 353 Squadron from 1942 to 1946, he was charged with protecting the Bay of Bengal from Japanese attack.

On one occasion, when Jack was flying his Lockheed Hudson low around the port of Taungup, he came under heavy fire. With fuel leaking from the plane and numerous holes in its wing, the aircraft crashed at Feni, with Jack being pulled from the wreckage by colleagues.

Planes for peace

Returning to Britain after the war, he felt God prompting him to join a group of airmen and women who, like RAF Flight Lieutenant Murray Kendon, wanted to use planes for peace.

‘Christian men and women,’ Murray wrote, ‘let us now make that sacrifice for Christ which we were willing to make for our country. Let us enable the aeroplane to prove its worth in the spiritual battle.’

By 1947, enough funds had been raised to buy a Miles Gemini, with Jack becoming one of the first British aviators to fly an aircraft to Africa’s uncharted areas. He was joined by former RAF D-Day landings veteran Stuart King.

In January 1948, the intrepid pair flew from Croydon Airport to conduct a six-month aerial survey of central Africa. Unfortunately, having left rainy, windswept Britian for the arid, sun-drenched continent, their twin-engine aircraft was caught in a downdraft and crashed in the Burundi foothills 143 days later.

‘Miraculously,’ Jack said, ‘we stepped out of the wreckage unscathed. Stuart had a few bruises, and myself a cut on my little finger.’

Having completed the final leg of their survey in an old four-wheel drive, the two friends returned to London more convinced than ever about the need for aircraft to bring help, hope and healing to those living in isolated areas.

Although Stuart and ‘Crasher Jack’ received a somewhat strained welcome when they gave an account of their crash to the Mildmay Council, the council members eventually agreed to them establishing an air service in the vast marshes of southern Sudan.

Although failing an eye test to obtain a commercial pilot licence prevented Jack from flying passengers for MAF, he nevertheless continued offering practical and financial support to the organisation he’d helped bring about.

Today, MAF’s fleet of 115 aircraft remain the only way many isolated communities can reach hospital safely, with the organisation’s 1,500 aid, development and missionary partners providing remote regions in more than 25 nations with clean water, food, medicine, healthcare, education, humanitarian relief and the Good News.

Still flying high

In August 2021 – having reached his centenary – Jack performed aerial acrobatics stunts in a Slingsby T64 Firefly. In February 2024, the experienced aviator ended up flying a vintage World War II Spitfire. According to Deputy Chief Spitfire Pilot Barry Hughes, Jack ‘didn’t need any instruction, really. He just took control, flew us around, and made some turnings and basic manoeuvres.’

Later, in June that year, the 102-year-old war veteran went to Normandy with his grandson Will to commemorate the D-Day landings. It was there, on Gold Beach, that he planted a cross in memory of his old friend Stuart, who’d served as an Engineer Officer with 247 Fighter Squadron as part of the Allied operations.

Paying tribute to Jack, the last of MAF’s founders, his widow Kate Hemmings wrote the following:
‘Oh, my lovely Jack, this world will be a very strange place without you, but you’ve left it a better place for having lavished 103 years of love in it.’