DUBLIN – In the end a magnificent happy ending: Lina Volpi flew to Dublin and met John “Paddy” Hemingway, 104 years old, an absolute celebrity not only in the Commonwealth because he is the last RAF pilot who can say he dueled in the Battle of Britain and who can also say that he escaped death on the Italian front in 1945 thanks to a little girl from Copparo, in the Ferrara area.
Her name was Carla Fabbri and she was 10 years old: it was she who accompanied the tall Englishman across the front line who, with bursts of machine guns, was being chased by the Germans who had shot down the Irishman’s Spitfire a few hours earlier. Lina Volpi is the daughter of Carla Fabbri, who died in 2013: every evening, to put Lina and her sister to sleep, she told the “fairytale” of that mission in which she had risked her life. She was a child who feared by the hand and who led that English pilot dressed in skimpy civilian clothes provided by the farmers: a father and his little girl would have attracted less attention in that dangerous crossing of the front line which was moving on the night of 24 April 1945 continuously between advances and retreats of the Germans and the Allies.
Mission accomplished. And forgotten until, in December 2023, an article by Paolo Ricci Bitti in the Messaggero reconstructs the story after a long search among the RAF reports on those last days of the war in the Ferrara area. In one of them “Paddy” regrets not having had the time, in those hectic days, to track down the little girl who had brought him to safety. He didn’t even know her name.
«I was terrified for his life more than for mine» wrote the over one hundred year old pilot who is the last survivor of the small group of pilots (a thousand) celebrated by Winston Churchill once the Battle of Britain was won which changed the course of the war : «Never have so many owed their lives to so few», said the English Prime Minister, carving one of his phrases consigned to history.
The Messaggero article was immediately picked up by the Times and the Sunday Times and the Italian press, while in the days around Christmas 2023 the search for that “little girl” began in the Ferrara area. Thanks to the crucial help of the Municipality of Copparo and the Air Archaeologists, who have even recovered wreckage from “Paddy’s” Spitfire in recent years, the pieces of the mosaic are approaching in a very short time. Lina Volpi, having read the story of the English pilot and the little girl, took her breath away: that little girl was her mother, there was no doubt. Her story coincides perfectly with the reports of the RAF and those of the air archaeologists of Copparo. Brian and Mike, “Paddy’s” sons, are contacted. And in the first weeks of 2024 “Paddy” also knows that he can tie together the threads of history that were broken 79 years ago: «I owe my life, I owe the world to that little girl – he told the Sunday Times – I can’t wait to meet and hug his daughter Lina.”
The meeting was held yesterday in Dublin, with Lina struggling to find words at first in front of that pilot in uniform with his chest covered in medals. As an interpreter, in addition to Brian Hemingway, he played Livia, Lina’s daughter. And what a shock she was when Paddy was given a case with the fragments of his Spitfire.
«I fought on all the European fronts of the Second World War, but of all the campaigns – he told Lina – I remember the Italian one with more pleasure for the warmth and generosity of the people we liberated from the Germans. I was shot down six times, but Copparo was the one where I risked my life the most. The memory of that courageous little girl has never left me.”
And Lina Volpi: «Thanks to “Paddy” I gave life back to my mother Carla who left us too soon: it was wonderful to meet the protagonist of the “fairytale” that mother told us every evening, I would never have believed it possible. John is a man of incredible clarity despite his age and has a unique elegance in his ways and features. And the respect that everyone observes towards him is maximum, they have already dedicated a statue to him and all the highest offices in Ireland and Great Britain honor him when the anniversary of the Battle of Britain is celebrated (15 September, ed.). He spoke to me and looked at me with great tenderness and I was truly speechless. And he ate one of the sweets that I brought him from Copparo, defying the doctors’ prohibitions. I really don’t know how to thank those who brought up this story and all those who with great passion helped me on this journey through time.”
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