Jack Hemmings, who has died at the age of 103, was co-founder of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), the largest humanitarian airline in the world.
In 1945 Jack, an RAF Squadron Leader tasked with protecting the Bay of Bengal from Japanese invasion, read an article advocating the need to use planes to ‘carry messengers of peace and to unload cargoes of blessing’. As RAF Flight Lieutenant Murray Kendon wrote: ‘Instead of spreading destruction and death why should [aircraft] not now spread life and healing by that message wherein lie the seeds of peace and power?’
Thanks to Murray Kendon’s vision, on 13 January 1948, Jack Hemmings and Stuart King left England to conduct a six-month survey of central Africa. They were guided by a fearless and unflappable faith in Jesus, some not entirely helpful maps, their compass, and the River Nile.
