Thomas Elmhirst Air Marshal Sir Thomas Walker Elmhirst ( 15 December 1895 – 6 November 1982 ) was a senior commander in the Royal Air Force in the first half of the 20th century and the first commander - in - chief of the newly independent Indian Air Force where he organised the funeral of Mahatma Gandhi following his assassination in 1948 . He later became the Lieutenant - Governor and Commander - in - Chief of Guernsey from 1953 to 1958 . Military career . Elmhirst studied at the Royal Naval Colleges at Osborne , Isle of Wight in 1908 , and at Dartmouth , Devon . He was commissioned as a midshipman in the Royal Navy in 1913 and was posted to HMS Indomitable in the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron under David Beatty , 1st Earl Beatty . When war came he served on HMS Indomitable as she took part in the initial bombardment of the Turkish Dardanelles forts and the Battle of Dogger Bank ( 1915 ) where he commanded ' X Gun Turret ' , the last one to fire at the German ship before she sank . In 1915 he was selected to be in the first draft of the Royal Naval Air Service where he served until the end of World War I . He celebrated the armistice by flying an airship ( SSZ73 ) under the Menai Bridge with his friend Gordon Campbell ( VC ) as his passenger . He then became part of the newly formed Royal Air Force in 1919 . Between the wars he trialled the first gyroscopic compass for aircraft in the RAF and became Air attaché to Turkey in the run up to World War II . During World War II he ran the operations room at RAF Uxbridge during the Battle of Britain . He then commanded the Egypt Command Group under Air Marshal Tedder before becoming Second - in - Command of the Desert Air Force . He continued in this role through the battle of Alamein until after the Allied invasion of Sicily . He was then Second - in Command of British Air Forces in North West Europe until the end of the war , serving in D - Day , Normandy , the Ardennes and the advance across the France and Germany . After the war he was appointed as the Commander of the RAF in India . As independence approached Pandit Nehru asked him to be the first Commander - in - Chief of the new Royal Indian Air Force upon its inception . In 1953 he ran Operation Totem , the first British nuclear bomb land tests in Emu Field , Australia . Later in 1953 he became the Lieutenant - Governor of Guernsey , welcoming Queen Elizabeth II on her inaugural tour of the island as the new monarch . He held the post for five years , retiring in 1958 . Family . Thomas Elmhirst was born into a landed gentry family in Yorkshire , where the family seat is Houndhill . He was the 4th of eight boys and one youngest sister . His eldest brother William Elmhirst was killed on the Somme and the third son Christopher Elmhirst was killed at Gallipoli . One of his brothers ( the 2nd son ) Leonard Knight Elmhirst became a noted philanthropist and educational reformer . He married firstly Katherine Gordon Black , daughter of William Black , on Tuesday 16 December 1930 , and had a son , Roger and a daughter , Jane . Katherine died in 1965 . He married secondly Marian Ferguson ( née Montagu Douglas Scott ) , widow of Colonel Andrew Henry Ferguson , on Wednesday , 30 October 1968 . Marian was the paternal grandmother of Sarah , Duchess of York , and maternal great grandmother of HRH Princess Beatrice of York and HRH Princess Eugenie of York . Thomas Elmhirst died at Dummer , Hampshire , on Saturday 6 November 1982 , in his 87th year . He was survived by his second wife , Marian Elmhirst ( née Montagu Douglas Scott ) , and his children and grandchildren from his first marriage .