On this day in 1917, John Owen (1882-1917) died from wounds sustained in an attack on enemy soldiers in France.
John, a sergeant, lost his life after his battalion – the 17th Welsh Regiment – helped in an attack on Bourlon Wood, near Cambrai in the winter of 1917.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) records reveal that he ‘bombed and killed 40 enemy soldiers in a dug-out in Bourlon Wood before he fell’.
The attack on German positions – a key offensive in the Battle of Cambrai – took place on November 23, 1917.
Hundreds of officers and men were killed or wounded.
John died the following day. He was 36.
He was married and had five children.
He is remembered on the Cambrai Memorial to the Missing.
Paul Roberts
NOTE
John, born in 1882 in Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales, married Ellen (or Helen) Neagle (1882-1952) in 1901 in Merthyr Tydfil. Ellen married Thomas Turner Arscott (1883-1956) in 1920 in Merthyr Tydfil. Thomas – whose brothers Albert Henry Arscott (1899-1972) and Oliver ‘Olly’ Edmund Arscott (1894-1965) also served in the Great War – was the son of Charles Arscott (1858-1926) and Emma Courtney Turner (1854-1899). Charles was the son of Samuel Arscott (1814-) and Mary Ann Courtney (1815-). Samuel was the brother of John Arscott (1807-1879), my great-great grandfather.
Picture below
Cambrai Memorial to the Missing on which John is remembered. Picture taken on September 9, 2018 by Rene Hourdry (CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Louverval_M%C3%A9morial_5.jpg
