Career
Hugh Champion de Crespigny joined the Special Reserve of the Royal Flying Corps in 1915 during the First World War. He went on to be Officer Commanding Number. 29 Squadron on the Western Front and then Officer Commanding Number.
65 Squadron also on the Western Front.
After the war he went to India where he commanded Number. 60 Squadron and then Number.
39 Squadron and finally Number. 2 (Indian) Wing. He served in the Second World War as Air Officer Commanding Number.
25 (Armament) Group, as Air Officer Commanding Air Headquarters Iraq and then as Air Officer Commanding Number.
21 (Training) Group. He retired in 1945. After the war he stood as a Labour Party candidate for the British Parliament in Newark. and then became Regional Commissioner for Schleswig-Holstein for the Control Commission for Germany. In 1948 he was succeeded as commissioner by William Asbury and stayed in Kiel as British consul until 1956.
He later lived at Vierville in Natal, South Africa.