Some 105 years ago today, poet and soldier LT Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, MC, 5th Bn. Manch. Rgt, was killed, on 4 November 1918, aged just 25. Owen died just a week before the signing of the armistice and is commemorated in Ors Communal Cemetery.
IWM Q 101783
He had earned his MC prior to death, although it was not gazetted until four months later. To quote his Military Cross citation in the Edinburgh Gazette in 1919:
“For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in the attack on the Fonsomme Line on October 1st/2nd, 1918. On the company commander becoming a casualty, he assumed command and showed fine leadership, and resisted a heavy counter-attack. He personally manipulated a captured enemy machine gun from an isolated position and inflicted considerable losses on the enemy.”
A year earlier, Owen had penned his famous work, Anthem for Doomed Youth while recovering from shell shock at Craiglockhart War Hospital, where he had met mentor Siegfried Sassoon.
Owen’s writing does not seek to glorify war, nor does it speak of the honor or bravery of the men he fought alongside, instead it is a bitter tale of soldiers “bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags” who are hit by gas.
Returning to France in August 1918 after convalescence, he earned the Military Cross in October leading his company then was killed in an action whilst crossing the Sambre–Oise Canal, just a few days before the Armistice.