Daniel Joseph Sheehan, (1894–1917) 2nd Lieutenant Royal Flying Corps (RFC), was the eldest of three sons of Captain DD Sheehan MP, all of whom served with him on the Western Front during World War I. Photograph shows him in Cork while on home leave in 1916. He was educated at Christian College, Cork, and Mount St. Joseph's College, Roscrea and played for Munster two years in the Senior College Inter-Provincial Rugby Championships when considered the best three-quarter back in Ireland. He joined the Devitt and Moore's Ocean Training Ship ''Medway'' as a Cadet in 1912, winning first prize for Navigation and General Seamanship. He transferred to HMS ''Hibernia'' as midshipman R.N.R. (Royal Navy Reserve), for training with a view to a permanent commission in the Royal Navy. After serving with the 3rd Battle (naval) Squadron in the North Sea, on the outbreak of World War I in 1914–15, he transferred to the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), obtaining his aviator's certificate in 1915. He was wounded while flying in Belgium, and, being regarded as unfit for further service with RNAS, received permission to transfer to the Royal Flying Corps. He was engaged for a time as an instructor at Oxford, England, then went on active service again in 1917 with the British No. 66 Squadron in France. He died on 10 May 1917, when on a scouting expedition, a superior body of enemy aircraft engaged the British battle-plane, and Lieut Sheehan and another officer were killed. His superior officer wrote: he was loved by all and was by nature absolutely devoid of fear. His biography as first printed and published by His Majesty's Stationary Office London, 1921 publication: Officers Died in the Great War 1914-19. He was buried at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Cabaret Rouge Cemetery (grave plot N16) at Souchez (14 km. north of Arras, sw. of Lille), France.

Captain DD Sheehan MP pictured (left) with his third son 2nd Lieutenant Michael J Sheehan both Royal Munster Fusiliers, on the Western Front with the British Expeditionary Force. Daniel Desmond (DD) Sheehan (1873-1948) was a journalist, barrister and Independent Member of Parliament for mid-Cork, Ireland (1901-1918) at Westminster. Despite being aged 41 and father of a family of nine he enlisted at Buttevant, county Cork in November 1914. In the spring and summer of 1915 he undertook the organisation of three special voluntary enlistment campaigns in counties Limerick, Clare and Cork and received Captaincy and company command in July. He served in the 9th Royal Munster Fusiliers (RMF) (Service) Battalion of the 16th (Irish) Division on the Loos Salient in France 1915-16, then with the 2nd (Regular) RMF Battalion. Whilst in the trenches at the front, DD Sheehan contributed a series of articles in his own name to the Daily Express, Irish Times and Cork Constitution. Re-assigned at the end of 1916 for health reasons and loss of hearing from shell-fire to the 3rd RMF (Reserve) Battalion, he acted as a Lewis gun and Anti-Gas Instructor. He was de-commissioned from the army due to ill-health in January 1918, retaining the honorary rank of Captain. Intimidation by militants hostile to his earlier recruiting, necessitated that he and his family abandon their Cork city home and move to London, only returning to Dublin in 1926 (biography, see Wikipedia D. D. Sheehan). Pictured on the right, Michael Joseph Sheehan (1899-1975), 2nd Lieutenant Royal Munster Fusiliers, DD Sheehan’s third son who enlisted at aged 15 1/2. He was at 16 the youngest commissioned officer in the army on the Western Front and twice wounded (later Brigadier Michael J Sheehan OBE CBE, Indian Army, WW2 Burma Campaign).

Martin Joseph Sheehan (r), Second Lieutenant with the Royal Air Force (RAF), was the second of three sons of Captain DD Sheehan MP (RMF), who served with him on the Western Front. When on an observation mission over Cambrai, France, in an R.E.8 D4898 reconnaissance biplane of the RAF No.13 Squadron, he was killed 1 October 1918, together with his pilot William George McCaig (left), Second Lieutenant RAF, born 1896 in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. They are buried nearby in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Anneux British War Cemetery, on the N30 route to Bepaume. Their graves: Plot 1, Row H nos. 21 and 19. His biography as first printed and published by His Majesty's Stationary Office London, 1921 publication: Officers Died in the Great War 1914-19 See also http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/516019-post2.html Link to recorded details. It is most probable that the aircraft was brought down by ground fire. Three family members recalled, how one morning their mother came down crying out loud I saw him coming down in flames -- I saw him coming down in flames. Several days later the official telegram arrived, confirming that he had been killed.