Gordon Strachey Shephard

Brigadier-General Gordon Strachey Shephard, (9 July 1885 – 19 January 1918) was a Royal Flying Corps commander. He was the highest-ranking officer of the flying services to be killed in service during the First World War.

Early life and military service

The second son of Sir Horatio Shephard, a judge, and Lady Shephard, of 58 Montagu Square, London, Shephard attended Eton College from 1898 to 1903, then the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He belonged to the Royal Cruising Club, where his skills as a yachtsman would prove useful later in life. He was gazetted second lieutenant to a Regular Army battalion of the Royal Fusiliers on 28 January 1905. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in 1912, the year of its formation. However, in July 1914, he used his skills as a yachtsman for a quite different purpose, to surreptitiously assist his friend Erskine Childers (who was executed by the Free State government in 1922 during the Irish Civil War) in landing a consignment of weaponry at Howth aboard Childers' yacht, The Asgard, on behalf of the Irish Volunteers, an action which, had it become known, would have resulted in, at a minimum, the termination of Shephard's military career, if not far more drastic punishment. His covert operations came to an abrupt halt when he and a companion were briefly detained by the German authorities at Emden, after they were seen taking photographs in a sensitive area.

On 22 August 1914, Shephard landed near Maubeuge for petrol, where he was given first-hand accounts of the fighting from French cavalry falling back from the Sambre canal. On 24 August 1914, he and Lieutenant Ian Bonham-Carter reported to the Staff that General von Kluck's right wing would swamp the British Army unless the retreat was continued.