Thomas Elmhirst

Sir Thomas Elmhirst
Born	(1895-12-15)15 December 1895 Yorkshire, England
Died
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Navy (1908–18) Royal Air Force (1918–50)
Years of service	1908–1950
Rank	Air Marshal
Commands held	Commander-in-Chief, Indian Air Force (1947–50) AHQ Egypt (1942–43) No. 202 Group (1941–42) RAF Abingdon (1935–37, 1939–40) RAF Leconfield (1939) No. 14 Squadron (1934–35)
Battles/wars	First World War Second World War
Awards	Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire Companion of the Order of the Bath Air Force Cross Knight of the Order of St John Mentioned in Despatches (4) Grand Officer of the Order of the Crown (Belgium) Croix de guerre (Belgium) Commander of the Legion of Merit (United States) Commander of the Legion of Honour (France) Croix de guerre (France)

Air Marshal Sir Thomas Walker Elmhirst KBE, CB, AFC, DL, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (15 December 1895 – 6 November 1982) was a senior commander in the Royal Air Force in the first half of the 20th century and the first commander-in-chief of the newly independent Indian Air Force where he organised the funeral of Mahatma Gandhi following his assassination in 1948. He later became the Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Guernsey from 1953 to 1958.

Military career

Elmhirst studied at the Royal Naval Colleges at Osborne, Isle of Wight in 1908, and at Dartmouth, Devon.

He was commissioned as a midshipman in the Royal Navy in 1913 and was posted to HMS Indomitable in the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron under David Beatty. When war came he served on HMS Indomitable as the ship took part in the initial bombardment of the Turkish Dardanelles forts and the Battle of Dogger Bank, where he commanded 'X Gun Turret', the last one to fire at the German ship SMS Blücher before it sank. In 1915 he was selected to be in the first draft of the Royal Naval Air Service where he served until the end of the First World War. He celebrated the armistice by flying an airship (SSZ73) under the Menai Bridge with his friend Gordon Campbell (VC) as his passenger. He then became part of the newly formed Royal Air Force in 1919.

Between the wars he trialled the first gyroscopic compass for aircraft in the RAF and became Air Attaché to Turkey in the run up to the Second World War.

During the Second World War he ran the operations room at RAF Uxbridge during the Battle of Britain. He then commanded the Egypt Command Group under Air Marshal Tedder before becoming Second-in-Command of the Desert Air Force. He continued in this role through the battle of Alamein until after the Allied invasion of Sicily. He was then Second-in Command of British Air Forces in North West Europe until the end of the war, serving in D-Day, Normandy, the Ardennes and the advance across the France and Germany. Finally he became Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Intelligence) in August 1945.

After the war he was appointed as the Commander of the RAF in India. As independence approached Pandit Nehru asked him to be the first Commander-in-Chief of the new Royal Indian Air Force upon its inception.

In 1953 he ran Operation Totem, the first British nuclear bomb land tests in Emu Field, Australia.

Later in 1953 he became the Lieutenant-Governor of Guernsey, welcoming Queen Elizabeth II on her inaugural tour of the island as the new monarch. He held the post for five years, retiring in 1958.

Family

Thomas Elmhirst was born into a landed gentry family in Yorkshire, where the family seat is Houndhill. He was the fourth of eight boys and had one youngest sister. His eldest brother William Elmhirst was killed on the Somme and the third son, Christopher Elmhirst ,was killed at Gallipoli. One of his brothers (the second son) Leonard Knight Elmhirst became a noted philanthropist and educational reformer.

He married firstly Katherine Gordon Black, daughter of William Black, on 16 December 1930, and had a son, Roger, and a daughter, Jane. Katherine died in 1965.

He married secondly Marian Ferguson (née Montagu Douglas Scott), widow of Colonel Andrew Henry Ferguson, on 30 October 1968. Marian was the paternal grandmother of Sarah, Duchess of York, and maternal great-grandmother of HRH Princess Beatrice of York and HRH Princess Eugenie of York.

Thomas Elmhirst died at Dummer, Hampshire, on 6 November 1982, in his 87th year. He was survived by his second wife, and his children and grandchildren from his first marriage.

References

Military offices
Preceded by Frank Inglis	Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Intelligence) 1945–1947	Succeeded by Lawrence Pendred
Preceded by Sir Hugh Walmsley As AOC in C, RAF India	Air Officer Commander-in-Chief, Air Forces in India 1947–1948	Post upgraded
New title Indian Air Force became an independent service	Commander in Chief, Royal Indian Air Force 1948–1950	Succeeded by Himself Redesignated as Commander-in-Chief, Indian Air Force in January 1950, after India became a republic
New title Redesignated from Commander-in-Chief, Royal Indian Air Force	Commander in Chief, Indian Air Force January – February 1950	Succeeded by Sir Ronald Ivelaw-Chapman
Government offices
Preceded by Sir Philip Neame	Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey 1953–1958	Succeeded by Sir Geoffrey Robson