A Doctor on The Western Front - The Diary of Henry Owens 1914-1918

[Paul Nixon]

Title: A Doctor on the Western Front – The Diary of Henry Owens 1914-1918

Edited by: John Hutton

Published by: Pen & Sword

ISBN: 978-1-78159-306-6

Published on: 19^th July 2013

Price: £19.99

Henry Barton Owens was not a soldier at all, rather a man who like many of his generation, found himself engulfed by extraordinary events. Born in 1889, by the time Britain went to war in August 1914, Henry was a doctor at a time when the Royal Army Medical Corps was several hundred doctors short of establishment. The call went out, Henry volunteered on the day Britain went to war and, remarkably, less than two weeks later he was in France. He would spend the next four years there, documenting what he saw.

In the years since 1914 there have been many thousands of published first-hand accounts of life on the Western Front and over the coming five years we can surely expect many more. In many respects, Henry Owens’s account is unremarkable. The diary lay undisturbed in the Imperial war Museum’s archives and is typical of officer diaries of the time. On 19^th October 1916, for instance, Owens writes:

“Beastly morning – raining cats and dogs. Battalion marched off at 9am… In the evening got a motor ambulance from the 57^th Field Ambulance and moved into Amiens with Smalley, Kidd and Anson and Hartwell (our Quarter Master). Had a good dinner there at a new place called the Savoy. Back about 10.30pm.”

“Old Soldiers Never Die”, it ain’t, but then there are precious few titles that match Richards’ account and besides, Richards was a ranker and Owens most certainly was not.

The book is well edited and there is some very useful background on the RAMC as well as handy contextual notes throughout. One has to ask the question though as to whether the narrative is actually compelling or just rather ordinary? What would have made the narrative more interesting perhaps, would have been additional notes on named individuals. Who were Smalley, Kidd, Anson and Hartwell, for instance, and did they survive?

It would have been nice to see some images of the Henry’s original diary entries and there is a silly mis-matching of photos and captions on the plate facing page 90 which should have been picked up by a junior sub-ed. Curiously there is no page of acknowledgements and a more thorough index, or indeed an appendix listing named individuals would have been very helpful to those of us, like me, who spend an inordinate amount of time on family history websites trawling through data.

Overall though, a good solid account of an officer’s time in the trenches which would sit happily, but unremarkably, alongside other First World War officer memoirs.

[seaforths]

Title: A Doctor on the Western Front – The Diary of Henry Owens 1914-1918

Edited by: John Hutton

Published by: Pen & Sword

ISBN: 978-1-78159-306-6

Published on: 19^th July 2013

Price: £19.99

Thank you for posting a comprehensive review on this book. Was Owens with the 3rd Division? I was considering getting it as an extended family member was a Major of the RAMC with 3rd Division. I might still get it but at least I won't build up my hopes too high!

[Paul Nixon]

Hello seaforths.

He mobilised with the 3rd Cavalry Field Ambulance on the 8th August at The Curragh. This was part of the 1st Cavalry Division.

Paul

[seaforths]

Hello seaforths.

He mobilised with the 3rd Cavalry Field Ambulance on the 8th August at The Curragh. This was part of the 1st Cavalry Division.

Paul

I can't get on my PC at the moment. I'm using an iPad. He Major John Proctor and went over in August 1914 and was killed August 1918 when he was attached to the 9th Cavalry Field Ambulance.