Thomas Elmhirst

Air Marshal Sir Thomas Walker Elmhirst, (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 Royal Indian Air Force upon Indian independence in August 1947, in which post 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. Family Thomas Elmhirst was born on 15 December 1895 to Reverend William Heaton Elmhirst (b. 1856) and Mary Elmhirst (née Knight; b. 1863), a landed gentry family in Yorkshire, where the family seat is Houndhill. He was the fourth of eight boys and had one younger sister. The children were: Captain William Elmhirst (1892–1916), killed on 13 November 1916 while serving with the 8th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment during the Battle of the Somme Leonard Knight Elmhirst (1893–1974), a noted philanthropist and educational reformer who married Dorothy Payne Whitney Second Lieutenant Ernest Christopher "Christie" Elmhirst (1895–1915), killed on 7 August 1915 while serving with the 8th Battalion Duke of Wellington's (West Riding Regiment) during the Gallipoli campaign Thomas Elmhirst (1895–1982) James Victor Elmhirst (1898–1958) Richard Elmhirst (b. 1900) Alfred O. Elmhirst (1901–1995) of Houndhill Irene Rachel Elmhirst (b. 1902) Military career Elmhirst studied at the Royal Naval Colleges at Osborne, Isle of Wight in 1908, and at Dartmouth in Devon. First World War In April 1912, Elmhirst joined his first ship, . He was commissioned as a midshipman in the Royal Navy in 1913 and was posted to 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 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 as his passenger. By 1917, he was promoted to flight lieutenant and by March 1918 to major, commanding the Naval Airship Patrol Station on Anglesey in Wales. He then became part of the newly formed Royal Air Force in 1919.