Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born in Plas Wilmot near Owestry in Shropshire on March 18th 1896. The eldest of four children Wilfred's family moved to Birkenhead (near Liverpool) in 1897 returning to Shrewsbury in 1906. Wilfred was a student at the Technical School in Shrewsbury.
At the outbreak of the First World War Owen was teaching in France and, as a deeply religious man and a pacifist, he did not feel inclined to be involved in the War. However in 1915 whilst visiting England he was swept along on the patriotic tide and enlisted in the Artist's Rifles. After completing his training he joined the Manchester Rifles Regiment and fought in France throughout 1916. By 1917 Owen was a victim of shell shock and was invalided home to England and then, in June 1917, sent to Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh to recuperate.
In August 1917 the poet Siegfried Sassoon was also sent to Craiglockhart as a patient. Owen gradually made friends with Sassoon and encouraged by the poet Owen began to write. For most of his life Owen had been troubled by nightmares and the horrors of the trenches would visit him each night as he slept. Sassoon encouraged him to use the nightmare scenes in his writing and during this time Owen's great poems, "Anthem for Doomed Youth" and "Dulce et Decorum est", were written.
Fit again and after spending leave with Sassoon, Robert Graves and some others Owen returned to the trenches in June 1918. He was a brave soldier and was awarded the Military Cross for destroying a German machine gun post single handed. Despite being wounded in August 1918 he returned to duty in September.
His regiment was ordered to take part in the crossing of the Sambre-Oise Canal and during this attack Owen was caught in machine gun fire and killed on the 4th November 1918, one week before the armistice.
In 1920 Sassoon published a collection of his friends poetry and Owen's place as one of the greatest of the war poets was assured. His descriptions of the terrible conditions of the soldiers and of the brutality of the trench warfare of the Western Front shocked a nation.
LINKS
The Great War http://www.pitt.edu/~pugachev/greatwar/w...
A wonderful site covering many aspects of the War. It also includes links to Owen's poetry. A little slow to load but well worth it.
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