Esmonde earned this award while in command of a torpedo bomber squadron in the Second World War - in an action known as Operation Fuller, the 'Channel Dash’.
Esmonde had six natural siblings (including a twin brother) and six half-siblings - three male, three female - from his father's first marriage to Rose McGuinness.
The biplanes flying from Victorious made a 193 km (120-mile) flight in foul North Atlantic weather and one torpedo hit the Bismarck amidships, leading either directly or indirectly through hard manoeuvring to earlier damage opening up, causing further flooding and a boiler room rendered unusable.
[4] The Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet wrote in his despatch to the Admiralty that 'This attack, by a squadron so lately embarked in a new carrier, in unfavourable weather conditions, was magnificently carried out and reflects the greatest credit on all concerned,' adding 'There can be little doubt that the hit was largely responsible for the Bismarck finally being brought to action and sunk,'[5] (although it was another torpedo hit by aircraft of Ark Royal several days later that led to the battleship's final destruction).
On 12 February 1942 off the coast of England, 32-year-old Lieutenant Commander Esmonde led a detachment of six Fairey Swordfish in an attack on the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen.
The British had long-anticipated the movement of these ships and had formulated a combined operation of attack by sea, air and land artillery, as the Germans approached the Straits of Dover.
Admiral Bertram Ramsay later wrote, "In my opinion the gallant sortie of these six Swordfish aircraft constitutes one of the finest exhibitions of self-sacrifice and devotion to duty the war had ever witnessed", while Admiral Otto Ciliax in the Scharnhorst described "The mothball attack of a handful of ancient planes, piloted by men whose bravery surpasses any other action by either side that day".
As he watched the smoking wrecks of the Swordfish falling into the sea, Captain Hoffmann of the Scharnhorst exclaimed, "Poor fellows, they are so very slow, it is nothing but suicide for them to fly against these big ships".
The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the grant of the VICTORIA CROSS, for valour and resolution in action against the Enemy, to: The late Lieutenant-Commander (A) Eugene Esmonde, D.S.O., Royal Navy.
On the morning of Thursday, 12th February, 1942, Lieutenant-Commander Esmonde, in command of a Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm, was told that the German Battle-Cruisers SCHARNHORST and GNEISENAU and the Cruiser PRINZ EUGEN, strongly escorted by some thirty surface craft, were entering the Straits of Dover, and that his Squadron must attack before they reached the sand-banks North East of Calais.
He flew on, cool and resolute, serenely challenging hopeless odds, to encounter the deadly fire of the Battle-Cruisers and their Escort, which shattered the port wing of his aircraft.
Almost at once he was shot down; but his Squadron went on to launch a gallant attack, in which at least one torpedo is believed to have struck the German Battle-Cruisers, and from which not one of the six aircraft returned.
His high courage and splendid resolution will live in the traditions of the Royal Navy, and remain for many generations a fine and stirring memory.
Esmonde was remembered in Winston Churchill's famous broadcast speech on 13 May 1945, "Five years of War",[9] as having defended Ireland's honour: When I think of these days I think also of other episodes and personalities.