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Flying Officer Peter SHEPHERD-SMITH (47453)
239 Squadron Royal Air Force Date of birth: 8th October 1917 Date of death: 10th August 1943 Killed in action aged 25 Commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial Panel 129
Peter Shepherd-Smith was born at Wandsworth in South London on the 18th of October 1917 the youngest son of the Reverend Percy Whitbread Shepherd-Smith and Muriel (nee Travers) Shepherd-Smith, of The Rectory, Shepperton in Middlesex. He was educated at Lancing College where he was in Seconds House from September 1931 to December 1934. He gained his School Certificate in 1934 and was a member of the Officer Training Corps, achieving Certificate A in 1934. He went on to St Bartholomew’s Hospital. On the outbreak of war he joined the army and was posted for officer training to the 165th Officer Cadet Training Unit at Dunbar from where he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Lincolnshire Regiment on the 10th of February 1940. He transferred to the Royal Air Force with the rank of Pilot Officer on the 29th of November 1942 and was promoted to Flying Officer on the 1st of October 1942. He was posted to 239 Squadron based at RAF Turnhouse who operated P51 Mustang aircraft on ground attack and reconnaissance operations in northern France. On the afternoon of the 10th of August 1943 Peter Shepherd-Smith took off with one other aircraft at 3.37pm in Mustang Mk1 AG557 for a "Rhubarb", or fighter sweep, over France in the area of Amiens and Rouen. His aircraft crashed into the sea off the Kent coast in heavy cloud; the other pilot returned to base at 4.15pm. He is commemorated on the Shepperton war memorial in Middlesex.

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