Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde, (1 March 1909 – 12 February 1942) was a distinguished Irish pilot in the Fleet Air Arm who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy awarded to members of Commonwealth forces. Esmonde earned this award while in command of a British Fleet Air Arm torpedo bomber squadron in the Second World War - in an action known as Operation Fuller, the 'Channel Dash’. Early life Esmonde was born on 1 March 1909 in Thurgoland, Yorkshire, near Barnsley. His mother, Eily O’Sullivan, was his father's second wife, Dr John Joseph Esmonde (1862–1915), had married her in 1904, after his first wife died in 1901. Dr. Esmonde was an Irish Catholic, a former Irish MP, who was in general practice in Yorkshire. Esmonde had six natural siblings (including a town brother) and six half-siblings - three male, three female - from his father's first marriage to Rose McGuinness. The natural siblings were: Owen, Donal, John Witham, his twin James, Carmel and Patrick. His half-brothers were: Sir John Esmonde, 14th Baronet, who served in the First World War; Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Esmonde (1897–1916), who was killed in action in the First World War serving with the 26th Tyneside Irish Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers; and Sir Anthony Esmonde, 15th Baronet. His father, died in 1915, when Esmonde and his siblings were all quite young. He had been serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and succumbed to pneumonia, after being laid low by over-work. Though born in England, Esmonde's parents were from Ireland and the family returned to the Esmonde family's ancestral home - Esmonde baronets - in Drominagh, County Tipperary. He was educated by the Jesuits, first at Wimbledon College in London and then at Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare, Ireland. Esmonde was commissioned into the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a pilot officer on probation on 28 December 1928. During the early 1930s, Esmonde served first in the RAF, and then transferred to the Fleet Air Arm where he served in the Mediterranean when responsibility for naval aviation was returned to the Royal Navy. Upon leaving the navy in 1934, he flew for Imperial Airways. and amongst other feats he flew flying boats and the first surcharged airmail to Australia. Second World War Early wartime career At the start of the Second World War, he