Walking through Liverpool’s Anfield Cemetery, I noticed a neat monument topped by a Gothic spire, commemorating the Owen family, on which one panel of the square base carries a carved portrait of their airman son Iowerth Ap Roland who was killed in action in 1917.
The magic of Google connected me with the research of Louise McTigue, who in its early days contributed to the informative blog of the funeral directors Sarsfield Memorials Liverpool: Blog – Sarsfield Memorials LiverpoolSarsfield Memorials Liverpool | The Oldest Family Run Monumental Masons In Liverpool.
Iowerth’s father Dr Roland Owen came from Anglesey but he and his wife Margaret lived in Seaforth on the northern edge of Liverpool.
Iowerth joined the Officers’ Training Corps at his public school, Mill Hill, and though he intended to qualify in medicine at London University he put his studies on hold in 1915, joined the Inns of Court OTC and applied for a commission in the Royal Flying Corps where he was awarded his wings after six months’ training.
He immediately left for France and on the morning of May 7th 1917 he set off on a photo-reconnaissance mission from Savy airfield to Arras where he and his observer Air Mechanic Reginald Hickling were overpowered by five German planes.
It seems that Reginald Hickling was killed instantly, yet Iowerth Owen, though he was shot in the head and chest, managed to land the plane successfully before passing out. He was bundled into an ambulance but died without regaining consciousness. He was twenty. He served in France for less than a month.
The two British airmen’s nemesis was a protégé of Manfred von Richthofen, the “Red Baron”. Leutnant Karl Allmenröder in a short career as a fighter pilot claimed thirty victories before he himself was shot down on June 26th 1917 aged twenty-one. He too was a medical student.
Iowerth Owen is buried in St Catherine’s British Military Cemetery, Arras, and commemorated on his parents’ memorial in Anfield.
Reginald Hickling, a policeman’s son who worked as a gardener, was buried at Albuera Cemetery at Bailleul-Sire-Berthoult in the Pas de Calais. He was aged 29. A week after his funeral his brother Frederick, a Quartermaster Sergeant in the 2/8th Worcestershire Regiment, was mentioned in dispatches.
Karl Allmenröder was buried in the Evangelical Cemetery, Wald, Germany. His reputation as an air ace encouraged the Nazi government to name streets after him. All these streets were renamed after 1945 and he has no public memorial.
In a time of peace these three men would have lived their lives without harming anyone. Indeed, in their different ways they’d have made the world a better place.
Their contemporary Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) called this waste of humanity “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori” – “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”.
