‘Winkie’ Ho Weng Toh, one of the last surviving Flying Tiger World War II pilots, dies at age 103

“A precious generation who had a much tougher and unpredictable life, who sacrificed so much so that my generation could live a peaceful and much easier life.

“To him, and the rest of that generation, I say thank you.”

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Nicknamed “Winkie”, Ho was born in Malaysia, went to study in Hong Kong and made his name as a bomber pilot in World War II with the China-America Composite Wing, a subsidiary of the Flying Tigers.

The CACW was a joint venture between the United States Air Force and the Chinese Air Force to fight the Japanese invasion.

A B-25 Mitchell bomber pilot, Captain Ho flew missions over occupied China during the war and returned a hero in Ipoh.

“I was very fortunate,” Ho told SCMP in 2015 “I never met a serious accident in all those years of flying. You could say I’m almost without a scratch.

“It is quite something for a boy from Ipoh. I was just a university student in Hong Kong when the war started.”

Ho, who was born in Ipoh in 1920, returned to Malaya in 1951 and flew for the now-defunct Malayan Airways, and then for Singapore Airlines, with whom he became the chief pilot for the Boeing 737 fleet in 1974.

Ho retired from flying in 1980.

In November 2019 – after being convinced to do so by former Singapore foreign minister George Yeo to write his memoirs – launched his autobiography, Memoirs of a Flying Tiger: The Story of a WWII Veteran and SIA Pioneer Pilot.

In 1949, Ho married Augusta Rodrigues, who died of lung cancer in 1977.