The War Poetry Website
Pictures associated with
Wilfred Owen's life and death
Wilfred Owen when he was
a small boy
It was a normal thing in Victorian times to think that the life of a soldier was good fun and something that boys were normally encouraged to play at. Even in Christian homes there seems to have been no awareness of the contradiction between the work of a soldier and Christ's teaching to love one's enemies - something Wilfred Owen commented on when he became a soldier.
Portrait of Wilfred Owen comissioned from artist James Mitchel for this website. It is based on a photograph.
Photograph of Wilfred Owen in Uniform
The landscape near Joncourt, north of St Quentin in northern France.
This photograph was taken in 1995 and shows the pleasant farm land that was turned into a massive battlefield in the First World War. Somewhere in this region in October 1918 Wilfred Owen killed a number of Germans, captured many more and thereby won his Military Cross.
The Sambre Canal in 1995
The Sambre canal just south of the village of Ors in France, near the border with Belgium. It was here, on 4th November 1918, that Wilfred Owen was killed at the age of twenty-five .
The Germans held the right bank. He was attempting to lead his men to make the river crossing on rafts to attack the Germans. Wilfred Owen and his men came under heavy machine gun fire.
A photograph of the time shows that in the First World War there was a line of poplars on the German side too, though badly damaged by shell fire.
British military cemetery at Ors
About a mile north of Ors, in the corner of a field and next to the railway line, is the village cemetery. At the east end of this village cemetery is the small British military cemetery, separated from the grassfield by a neat hedge. Wilfred Owen's grave is in the far left corner, third from the left. Beyond it can be seen the village of Ors and its church. Just beyond this is the canal where Wilfred Owen died.
