Maj. Robert Gregory was killed in action on 23 January 1918, when his Sopwith Camel crashed near Padua, Italy. Royal Flying Corps records in the British National Archives allege that Maj. Gregory was "shot down in error by an Italian pilot", a claim that has been repeated by both Yeats' and Lady Gregory's biographers. In 2017, Geoffrey O'Byrne White, the director of the Irish Aviation Authority, a distant cousin of Major Gregory, and a former pilot with the Irish Air Corps, said he believed his relative had become incapacitated at high altitude due to an inoculation that morning against influenza.Ray Burke, "Challenge to official accounts of Gregory death in WWI," 2 January 2018, RTÉ News Now, https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2018/0101/930446-robert-gregory/
