Eugene Kingsmill Esmonde

On 12 February 1942, Lieutenant Commander Eugene Kingsmill Esmonde led six slow, fabric-covered Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers towards one of the most heavily defended German naval formations of the Second World War. Ahead of them were the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, dozens of escorting vessels and a protective screen of Luftwaffe fighters. Esmonde knew the odds. His official Victoria Cross citation would later state that he knew his “enterprise was desperate.” Yet he led 825 Naval Air Squadron straight into the attack. All six Swordfish were lost. Only five of the eighteen aircrew survived. Esmonde did not.

What makes the story even more remarkable is what had happened just one day earlier. On 11 February 1942, Esmonde had stood before King George VI at Buckingham Palace and received the Distinguished Service Order for his leadership during the Royal Navy's pursuit of the German battleship Bismarck. Twenty-four hours later, he was dead, and the action that killed him would result in the posthumous award of the Victoria Cross.

Eugene Kingsmill Esmonde was born on 1 March 1909 at Thurgoland in Yorkshire to an Irish family closely associated with Drominagh, County Tipperary. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records him as the son of John Joseph and Eily Esmonde of Drominagh. Military service and gallantry already formed part of his family history. His great-uncle, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Esmonde, had received the Victoria Cross during the Crimean War in 1855. Eugene was educated by the Jesuits at Wimbledon College in London and later at Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare. Wimbledon College still commemorates him among its former pupils who lost their lives during the Second World War.

Esmonde's life in the air began long before the Second World War. He was commissioned as a Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force on 28 December 1928 and became a flying instructor in 1932. In 1934 he left full-time service, joined the Reserve and began flying for Imperial Airways, where he trained as a flying-boat pilot. His civilian career gave him extensive experience at a time when long-distance commercial aviation was still pioneering work. In January 1939, with war drawing closer, the Admiralty offered him a commission in the newly formed Royal Naval Air Branch. Esmonde obtained his release from the RAF Reserve, reported to Royal Naval Air Station Lee-on-Solent for refresher training and was appointed to 754 Naval Air Squadron.

By May 1940 he had taken command of 825 Naval Air Squadron, flying the Fairey Swordfish from HMS Furious. The Swordfish looked antiquated even by the standards of 1940, but in skilled hands it was an exceptionally effective carrier-borne torpedo aircraft. Esmonde led his squadron in operations against Trondheim and Tromsø during the Norwegian campaign before 825 NAS was ordered to embark in the newly commissioned aircraft carrier HMS Victorious. That move placed Esmonde on the path to the first of the two actions for which his name would become famous.

In May 1941 the German battleship Bismarck broke into the Atlantic with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. After Bismarck sank HMS Hood in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, the Royal Navy committed major forces to finding and destroying her. HMS Victorious, despite being newly commissioned and not yet fully worked up, joined the pursuit with the nine Swordfish of 825 Naval Air Squadron.

On the night of 24 May, Esmonde led all nine Swordfish from Victorious through darkness, bad weather and intense anti-aircraft fire to attack Bismarck. Eight aircraft ultimately made their torpedo runs, and one torpedo struck the battleship amidships. The hit did not disable Bismarck's steering gear. That decisive damage came two days later from a separate Swordfish strike launched by HMS Ark Royal. Esmonde's attack nevertheless demonstrated the courage and effectiveness of a squadron operating from a carrier that had only recently entered service.

The honours list for the Bismarck operations was published in the Second Supplement to The London Gazette on 16 September 1941, Issue 35275. The Admiralty described the awards as being for “gallantry, daring and skill in the operations in which the German Battleship Bismarck was destroyed.” Lieutenant Commander (A) Eugene Esmonde, Royal Navy, HMS Victorious, was appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order. It was this DSO that King George VI personally presented to him at Buckingham Palace on 11 February 1942.

After the Bismarck operation, 825 Naval Air Squadron transferred to HMS Ark Royal and served with the carrier in the Mediterranean. On 13 November 1941, Ark Royal was torpedoed by the German submarine U-81 near Gibraltar. Despite efforts to save her, the carrier sank the following day. Esmonde remained involved in the efforts surrounding the stricken ship and was one of the last to leave. His conduct during the loss of Ark Royal resulted in a Mention in Despatches, an honour that is also recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Within months, Esmonde and a re-formed 825 Squadron were preparing for another mission, one far more dangerous than the attack on Bismarck. British intelligence expected Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen to attempt to escape from Brest and return to German waters through the English Channel. The British counter-plan, Operation Fuller, called for attacks by aircraft, coastal artillery and naval forces.

The Germans began their breakout, Operation Cerberus, during the night of 11 February 1942. They passed through the Channel undetected for hours. By the time the alarm was fully raised on 12 February, the three major warships were already approaching the Straits of Dover under powerful Luftwaffe protection.

At RAF Manston in Kent, Esmonde had only six Swordfish available. Each aircraft carried three men and a single torpedo. The planned fighter protection failed to assemble in full. At 12:25 p.m. the six Swordfish took off and circled for their escorts. Only ten Spitfires of No. 72 Squadron reached them in time. Esmonde could wait no longer. He turned east and led his squadron towards the German fleet.

German Messerschmitt Bf 109s and Focke-Wulf Fw 190s descended on the formation. The Spitfires fought to protect the Swordfish, but contact between the formations was lost as the battle developed. Every Swordfish was damaged. Still Esmonde continued.

His Victoria Cross citation describes him flying on “cool and resolute”, “serenely challenging hopeless odds.” As he approached the German ships, concentrated anti-aircraft fire shattered the port wing of his aircraft. He did not turn away. He continued leading 825 Squadron towards the enemy until his Swordfish was shot down and crashed into the Channel.

The other five aircraft continued their attacks. Some succeeded in releasing their torpedoes before they too were shot down. The wartime Victoria Cross citation recorded that at least one torpedo was then believed to have struck the German battlecruisers. Later Royal Navy accounts, based on the fuller evidence available after the war, state that no torpedo from the six Swordfish actually hit the German ships. The distinction matters. Their attack did not succeed because of an imagined hit. Its place in Royal Navy history rests on the determination of eighteen men who continued towards their targets when the chances of survival had almost disappeared.

All six Swordfish were lost. Thirteen of the eighteen aircrew were killed. Only five survived, four of them wounded. The four surviving officers received the Distinguished Service Order and Naval Airman Donald Bunce received the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal. Esmonde's own recognition was the highest that could be awarded.

The Victoria Cross for Eugene Esmonde was published in the Third Supplement to The London Gazette on 3 March 1942, Issue 35474. The award was granted for “valour and resolution in action against the Enemy.” The citation recorded the destruction of his aircraft, his refusal to abandon the attack and his leadership through overwhelming fighter and anti-aircraft opposition. It concluded that his “high courage and splendid resolution” would live in the traditions of the Royal Navy.

King George VI subsequently presented Esmonde's posthumous Victoria Cross to his mother at Buckingham Palace. For the Esmonde family, it was a second Victoria Cross, following the award made to his great-uncle Thomas Esmonde during the Crimean War. The coincidence linked two generations of the same family across almost ninety years of British and Irish military history.

Esmonde's body remained missing for more than two months. On 26 April 1942 it was recovered in the Thames estuary near the River Medway, still supported by his aircrew lifejacket. He was buried with naval honours on 30 April 1942 at Gillingham (Woodlands) Cemetery in Kent, in the Royal Naval Reservation, Roman Catholic Grave 187. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records him as Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde, HMS Daedalus, 825 Squadron, Royal Navy, aged thirty-two.

His story did not end with the Channel Dash. The courage of the six Swordfish crews was openly acknowledged even by their German opponents, while the Royal Navy has continued to remember the attack as one of the defining episodes in Fleet Air Arm history. Esmonde's name remains inseparable from the Fairey Swordfish, 825 Naval Air Squadron, the pursuit of Bismarck and Operation Fuller.

Today, the medals of Lieutenant Commander Eugene Kingsmill Esmonde VC, DSO, on loan from his family, are displayed at Royal Navy Museums: Naval Aviation at Yeovilton, where his story forms part of the continuing history of British naval aviation.

Eugene Esmonde's final mission did not stop the Channel Dash. The German ships escaped through the Straits. But military history is not remembered only through victories. Sometimes it remembers the moment when duty demanded an almost impossible choice, and someone chose to lead anyway. On 12 February 1942, Eugene Esmonde did exactly that. His Victoria Cross citation called it “high courage and splendid resolution.” More than eighty years later, those words still define his place in the history of the Royal Navy and the Fleet Air Arm.