World War II Air Force hero Konstantinos Hatzilakos dies at 102

One of the last surviving heroes of World War II, Greek fighter pilot Konstantinos Hatzilakos, has died at the age of 102, the Retired Air Force Officers Association said Tuesday.

Lieutenant General Konstantinos Hatzilakos was an Air Force icon, a World War II fighter veteran and the last surviving pilot of the Desert Squadron. On his account more than 200 sorties on the fronts of North Africa, the Mediterranean, Italy and the Yugoslav coast during the Second World War.

After the fall of Crete in May 1941, he, along with his classmates and the rest of the Greek aviators, would end up in Egypt, and from there to (then) Palestine, Sudan, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and South Africa to continue training before joining the Greek fighter and bomber squadrons in the Middle East operating under the auspices of the RAF. After the liberation of Athens from Nazi occupation in October 1944, he would be one of the first aviators to fly his Spitfire over the Acropolis, when three and a half years later, the white and blue flag flew again on the Sacred Rock.

Hatzilakos was born in Larissa in central Greece in 1920 and entered the then Hellenic Royal Air Force Academy at the start of the war in 1940, quickly joined the fighting and saw action on the North African, Mediterranean, Italian, Yugoslav and Aegean fronts. He flew over 200 sorties in Hurricane and Spitfire aircraft, and was awarded 10 medals for outstanding contributions to the war.

He went on to serve as an instructor at all three academies of the Greek Armed Forces and as head of operations in various NATO posts from 1945 to 1967.

From 1964 to 1967 he was a defense attaché at the Greek embassy in Washington DC, from which he resigned due to disagreements with the junta regime. Konstantinos Hatzilakos retired with the rank of lieutenant general. He later also worked as a technical advisor for the aerospace company McDonnell Douglas Corporation.

Among the more memorable missions he publicly spoke about were helping British Prime Minister Winston Churchill fly to Alexandria in Egypt in November 1943 and, two weeks later, covering an American bomber carrying US President Franklin Roosevelt to Tehran. [ERT, kathimerini].

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