Lady Soames, the last surviving child of Sir Winston Churchill, has died, her family said on Sunday.
Mary Soames, who was 91, died peacefully at home in west London on Saturday evening surrounded by her family, after a short illness. She was the youngest of the five children of the wartime prime minister and his wife Clementine.
One of her sons, the Conservative MP Nicholas Soames, said: "She was a truly remarkable and extraordinary woman, who led a very distinguished life."
Mary Churchill worked for the Red Cross and the Women's Voluntary Service from 1939 to 1941, and joined the Auxiliary Territorial service with which she served in London, Belgium and Germany in mixed anti-aircraft batteries, rising to the rank of junior commander (equivalent to captain).
She also accompanied her father as aide-de-camp on several of his overseas journeys, including the Potsdam conference in 1945, where he met US president Harry S Truman and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
In 1947 she married the Conservative politician Christopher Soames (later Lord Soames) and they had five children – Nicholas, Emma, Jeremy, Charlotte and Rupert.
Lady Soames worked for many public organisations, such as the International Churchill Society, as a patron; Church Army and Churchill Houses; and chaired the National Theatre. She was patron of the National Benevolent Fund for the Aged.
She was given a damehood for her public service, particularly in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and was appointed Lady Companion, Order of the Garter, in 2005.
She also wrote an acclaimed biography of her mother, Clementine Churchill, in 1979, which won a Wolfson prize, as well as her own memoirs. Nicholas Soames, MP for Mid Sussex, said: "She was not just a wonderful mother to whom we were all devoted, but the head and heart of our family after our father died, and will be greatly missed.
"She was a distinguished writer and led a distinguished life, with her service in the war, and is part of that generation which is passing. This is extraordinary timing – just before the anniversary of the Normandy landings, Churchill's last surviving child dies. It is the great swing of history."
