Eugene Esmonde

Clongowes 1924-1925 I Eugene Esmonde

Eugene Esmonde (1909-42), naval aviator and posthumous VC holder, was born in Yorkshire but grew up near Borrisokane, County Tipperary, as the son of a nationalist MP. He was a kinsman of Thomas Esmonde VC. He attended Clongowes in 1924-5. He was commissioned into the Royal Air Force in 1928 before transferring to the Fleet Air Arm. He subsequently flew as a civilian pilot for Imperial Airways. Returning to the Fleet Air Arm at the start of World War II, with the rank of lieutenant commander, he survived the sinking of HMS Courageous in 1939, before serving on HMS Victorious in 1941, when in foul weather he led nine Swordfish biplanes against the German battleship Bismarck, for which he was decorated with the DSO. His squadron was aboard HMS Ark Royal, when she was torpedoed in November 1941. The Swordfish squadron ferried some of the crew to safety before she sank. He was mentioned in dispatches for his actions on this occasion. He is famous for leading the doomed attack on the German warships, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen, during their ‘dash’ through the English Channel in 1942. Esmonde was ordered to intercept the German fleet with only six slow-flying Swordfish torpedo bombers. With little RAF support, all six British planes were shot down by faster German fighters and by antiaircraft fire from the ships. Only five of the eighteen aircrew survived the action. Esmonde was killed, when his plane – already minus part of a port wing – continued to attack, until shot down in flames by a German FW 190. His body was subsequently washed ashore and buried at Gillingham, Kent. Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, the Channel commander, later wrote: ‘the gallant sortie of these six Swordfish aircraft constitutes one of the finest exhibitions of self-sacrifice and devotion to duty of the war’. The German commanders were equally unstinting in their admiration for the courage of the British airmen. Esmonde was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for ‘his high courage and splendid resolution’. He was remembered by name as an Irish hero in Winston Churchill‘s famous 1945 victory broadcast. His half-brothers, Sir John Esmonde, who attended Clongowes in 1909-11, and Sir Anthony Esmonde, who attended Clongowes in 1909-11 and 1913-14, were successive members of the Dáil for County Wexford.