Early Life
Esmonde was born on 1 March 1909 in Thurgoland, near Barnsley, Yorkshire where his father Dr John Joseph Esmonde (1862–1915) was in temporary General Practice. Though by birth English, his parents were from Ireland and he returned to his family's ancestral home of the Esmonde baronets in Drominagh, North Tipperary as a boy and was educated by the Jesuits, first at Wimbledon College in London and then at Clongowes Wood College in co. Kildare, Ireland.
He had three elder half-brothers from his father's first marriage, Sir John Esmonde, 14th Baronet, who served in the First World War, 2nd Lt. 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.
Esmonde was commissioned into the Royal Air Force as a pilot officer on probation on 28 December 1928. During the early 1930s, Esmonde served first in the Royal Air Force, 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.
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