Corgi Corsair MkII JT537 1836

Applying to join the Fleet Air Arm at just 18 years old, Canadian pilot Donald Sheppard made his first operational sorties in support of Britain’s attempts to destroy the German battleship Tirpitz at the end of March 1944. He was aboard his home carrier HMS Victorious as she later traded the icy waters of the North Sea for a new assignment in the Far East, where the Indian Ocean saw Sheppard develop from a talented novice pilot into an air ace, one of only two Canadian Navy aces and the Fleet Air Arm’s only Corsair ace of the Second World War.

During a hectic period of combat flying in the Indian Ocean, Sheppard was credited with at least four aerial victories, plus a couple more claimed as damaged, shared or probable. One of these victories saw him engaged in a lengthy combat with a Japanese fighter, which saw him giving chase to the enemy aircraft for over 20 miles at 20,000 feet. Once in shooting range, he fired on the enemy aircraft which almost immediately exploded in a ball of flame. However, Sheppard was flying so fast that he didn’t have time to take evasive action and his Corsair flew through the flaming debris, burning his aircraft’s tail and elevators. Thankfully, he managed to nurse his fighter back to HMS Victorious without further incident.