LONDON (AP) — The last surviving pilot of the Battle of Britain has died, severing the last living link to the few thousand young men who fought the Nazi air force to a standstill amid fears that Britain might be forced to capitulate during the early months of World War II.

John “Paddy″ Hemingway, an Irish national who enlisted in the Royal Air Force before the war began, died Monday at his home in Dublin, the RAF said. He was 105.

Hemingway was just 20 years old when he and his comrades in the Royal Air Force took to the skies to fight off wave after wave of Nazi aircraft that sought to pound Britain into submission during the summer and autumn of 1940.

In August of that year, when German bombers were relentlessly targeting airfields in southern England and the outcome of the battle was still in doubt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously stood before the House of Commons to pay tribute to the young pilots who were defending Britain.

“The gratitude of every home in our island, in our empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion,” Churchill said. “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Britain has ever since revered “the few” for saving the country during its moment of peril. The Battle of Britain Memorial on the English Channel coast lists the names 2,941 Allied airmen who took part in the battle.

During dogfights with German aircraft in August of 1940, Hemingway was twice forced to bail out of his Hurricane fighter, once landing in the sea off the east coast of England before returning to his squadron to resume the fight, the RAF said. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for gallantry in 1941.

But Hemingway dismissed suggestions of bravery and heroism, saying he was a pilot and had a job to do.

“The world was at war, and you couldn’t go somewhere and say, ‘I’m at peace and I don’t fight wars,’” he said in a 2020 interview with the BBC.

“The main skill was luck. You had to be lucky, no matter how good you were. For instance, my boss, Dickie Lee, was the best pilot I’ve every seen, but he was shot down and killed. So he had no luck. I had bags of luck.”

Born July 17, 1919, in the Rathmines area of Dublin, Hemingway enlisted in the RAF in 1938.

He first saw action during the Nazi invasion of France, when he flew fighter cover for retreating British forces.

Following the Battle of Britain he worked as a controller, helping to direct the RAF’s response to German attacks. At the end of the war, Hemingway served as commander of No. 43 Squadron, which flew Spitfires in northern Italy.

Hemingway remained in the RAF after the war and retired in 1969 after more than 30 years of service.

Children in the English town of Wooler in Northumberland are temporarily without a playground after workers found 176 unexploded World War II bombs buried underneath the play area.

The first ordnance was discovered Jan. 14, when workers began expanding the play area and encountered what looked like a bomb while excavating the site.

Northumberland County Councillor Mark Mather told Sky News they put a roughly 50-yard cordon around the site after the first bomb was unearthed and alerted the army.

“The army bomb disposal team came out to the first one on the first day, and then the second bomb, the next day,” Mather said.

But as more of what he described as “training devices” continued to crop up, the parish council had to hire an outside firm to fully examine the playground. Brimstone Site Investigations, a bomb disposal company, found more than 150 bombs over the next two days.

The Wooler Parish Council described the ordnance as “practice bombs” in a news release but clarified that despite the term they still pose a threat to children, as they’ve been found with their fuses intact, along with a “detonator burster and smoke filling.”

The council told the BBC that Wooler formerly hosted a Home Guard training center. After the war, apparently, they disposed of their ordnance by burying it in several pits ― pits that later became part of Scotts Park.

“It’s quite something to think the children have been playing on bombs and it’s been a really challenging situation,” Mather told the BBC.

“We’ve only cleared about a third of all the park, and we could still find another pit with more bombs in.”