Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English Poet and Soldier. His shocking, graphic and realistic poetry surrounding the First World War was heavily influenced by his friend and mentor Siegfried Sassoon. On 21 October 1915, Owen enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles Officers’ Training Corps and on 4 June 1916 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment. Owen had a number of traumatic experiences during the war. All of his injuries, of which include suffering concussion from falling into a shell hole and being flown into the air by a trench mortar, resulted with him being diagnosed with Shell Shock (Neurasthenia) and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh. It is here he met Sassoon and took up teaching. Once discharged he spent a year writing and finding solitude. However, in July 1918, Owen returned to service in France – his decision may or may not have been due to Sassoon being shot in the head and put on sick-leave. Owen saw it as his duty to depict the horrific nature of war and to publicise the violence and terror the soldiers were being faced with. At the end of August 1918, Owen returned to the trenches and successfully led units of the Second Manchesters to storm enemy strong points. For his bravery, Owen was awarded the Military Cross, which allowed him to justify himself as a successful War Poet. Owen was killed in action during the crossing of the Sambre-Oise Canal, one week before the signing of the Armistice. His mother received news of his death on Armistice Day.