Roll of Honour 2023

P AGE 233

W ORLD W AR II

S T . E DWARD ’ S S CHOOL , O XFORD R OLL OF H ONOUR

Name PETER ROBERT OWEN (Fusilier)

Lef SES 1940

Roll Number 3157 Died 08:04:1943

Set / House G

Arrive SES 1936

Where ARAKAN PENINSULAR, BURMA

Age 20

Serving with ROYAL INNISKILLING FUSILIERS (CHINDITS)

Buried Rangoon Memorial Cemetery, Myanmar, Burma

Remembered Rangoon Memorial, Myanmar, Ribble Valley Remembrance Shield, and The St. Edward’s School WW2 Memorial

Born Bollington, Cheshire 1923, the elder of two SES brothers, sons of an Army Chaplain. He was a House Prefect, a member of the 2nd Cricket XI, the Athletics Team, The Swimming Team and the Boxing Team. A Lance Corporal in the OTC and in Form Vd. ‘He will be remembered by his contemporaries for his physical courage and great fund of humour. He was a very good athlete and an excellent boxer, he represented the School in both sports’ (Chronicle). He joined the war effort with as a Lance Corporal in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1941, later attached as a Fusilier to the 1st Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 1943 as part of the Chindits’ first mission behind enemy lines in Burma. He was killed ‘somewhere behind enemy lines on the Arakan Peninsula’, while serving with Order Wingate’s first Chindits’ Expedition in April 1943. This expedition was unsuccessful, put down to poor preparation and facing a well dug-in enemy.