In April 1938 19-year-old Paul Farnes, noting that “things were not looking too good” in the world, and that European war was a strong possibility, decided to enlist in the Royal Navy. He picked up an application form from HMS President, a recruitment vessel moored at the Embankment in central London, near where he worked. But that weekend he met a young man who suggested that instead of enlisting in the navy, it would be “far more fun” for Farnes to follow his example and join the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR).

By the end of the second world war, in 1945, Wg Cmdr Farnes, who has died aged 101, had shot down seven enemy aircraft, jointly accounted for a further two, had claims on another two, and damaged 11. To qualify as an “ace”, a pilot needed to shoot down five aircraft; Farnes was the last surviving British flier to achieve that mark.

His war effectively began when, on 10 May 1940 as a sergeant pilot, he was flying one of 16 Hurricane fighters from No 501 Squadron (County of Gloucester) that took off from Tangmere aerodrome in Sussex. The squadron was part of the RAF’s impressively named “advanced air striking force”, and was heading for Bétheniville aerodrome near Reims. That day marked the beginning of the Nazi onslaught on France.

Two days later the 21-year-old shot down a Heinkel 111 bomber and took part in the downing of another. On 14 May he shared in the destruction of a Dornier 17 bomber and on 27 May he probably shot down another Heinkel.

Paul Farnes was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal in October 1940. Photograph: HNP Picture Desk/Hyde News & Pictures Ltd

The deployment of Hurricanes – with a few Spitfires later over Dunkirk – was the RAF’s main contribution to the Battle of France. Farnes would later describe the experience as a “shambles” – between May and June 1940, 477 fighter planes were lost and 284 pilots killed. Over that period he found himself, together with his squadron, in retreat: first to Le Mans, west of Paris, and eventually to the Channel Islands, ahead of the advancing Germans. Then it was back to Tangmere.

Next up was the Battle of Britain, which, according to the British at least, began on 10 July 1940. For Farnes and his comrades the initial starting point was Gravesend in Kent, from which they would fly down to RAF Hawkinge, near Folkestone, early each morning.

On 12 August 1940 Farnes shot down a Junkers Ju 87 Stuka bomber near North Foreland in Kent, and on 15 August he shot down two more over Hawkinge. More than any other aircraft of that era, the Stuka had seemed to epitomise Blitzkrieg invincibility, with its siren, the “Jericho trumpet” emitting a high-pitched scream as the plane dived. But it failed over England, a sitting duck for faster RAF fighters.

Three days after the last Stuka, Farnes shot down a Dornier 17. On 28 August he added a Messerschmitt Me 109E. He damaged six more enemy aircraft during the battle: a Heinkel 111 on 30 August, two Messerschmitt 109s on 2 September, a Messerschmitt 110 on 3 September, and Dornier 17s on 14 and 27 September.

On the last day of September, while flying his malfunctioning Hurricane back to Kenley, in Surrey, where he was by then based, he encountered a Junkers Ju 88 bomber flying directly towards him at 1,500 feet. Ducking behind the aircraft, he opened fire – and brought it down. Soon afterwards the Kenley station commander introduced Farnes and the surviving German pilot to each other, but the German declined to shake hands. By the end of October Farnes had probably accounted for another Me 109.

In October, by which time the Battle of Britain was nearing its end, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal – then an award for non-commissioned officers – and on 3 December he was commissioned, as a pilot officer. After some months as a training instructor in England in 1941, he was transferred to a training unit in Aden, in what is now Yemen.

By February 1942 he was with 229 Squadron, and in March flew with it into Malta. From the summer of 1940 until November 1942 the island was under siege by the Italians and the Germans, and Farnes took command of the squadron after the commanding officer was injured. In May 1942 his Hurricane squadron could be withdrawn, after more Spitfires arrived. Following a spell in Egypt he was posted to Iraq until early 1945. Back in England he commanded squadrons flying Mustangs and Spitfires until 1946. He remained in the RAF until 1958, in a variety of roles, including as an instructor at a jet flying school.

After leaving the RAF in 1958 Paul Farnes worked in the motor industry, co-ran a builders’ merchants and was a director of a hotel in Worthing. Photograph: Seablue Media

Farnes was born in Boscombe, on the edge of Bournemouth, in what was then Hampshire but is now Dorset. His mother, who was unmarried, died in childbirth, while his father, a member of the Australian armed forces, returned home. The nurse who had brought him into the world then adopted him – “I had a wonderful upbringing, just she and I together,” Farnes said. Raised in Walton-on-Thames on the Surrey-London border, he was educated at Surbiton county grammar school and Kingston technical college.

It was after securing a job with the Vickers engineering company that Farnes signed on with the RAFVR. His time there included a spell at Gatwick, and six months at St Athan in south Wales as a full-time flier, moving from Tiger Moth biplanes to Fairey Battles and on to Hurricanes. It was a time when the principal European powers were all developing monoplane fighters, and the Hurricane and its contemporary, the Spitfire, were at least as good as, if not better than, their main rival, Nazi Germany’s Messerschmitt Me 109.

Then in September 1939, as the second world war began, Sergeant Pilot Farnes joined No 501 Squadron. It was initially based at Filton, near Bristol, but by May 1940 it had moved to France.

After leaving the RAF in 1958 Farnes worked in the motor industry, co-ran a builders’ merchants and was a director of the Beach hotel in Worthing.

In 1948 he married Pamela Barton. She died in 1989. In 1994 he married Cynthia Lacey, who died in 2012. He is survived by a daughter, Linda, and a son, Jonathan. Another son, Nicholas, predeceased him.

• Paul Caswell Powe Farnes, fighter pilot, born 16 July 1918; died 28 January 2020