Major-General David Lanyon Lloyd Owen CB,
DSO,
OBE,
MC (10 October 1917 – 5 April 2001) was a British soldier and writer. During
World War II he commanded the
Long Range Desert Group.
Early career
He joined the
British Army in 1938 and was commissioned into the
Queen's Royal Regiment. He was with the 2nd
Battalion of this regiment in
Palestine and the
Western Desert from 1939 to July 1941 when he joined the
Long Range Desert Group (LRDG).
Long Range Desert Group
He took part in a number of operations, including the
SAS raid on
Tobruk in August/September 1942, which earned him the
Military Cross. He was wounded in an
air raid on the
LRDG base at
Kufra in October 1942 and nearly lost an arm. He rejoined the LRDG in February 1943, when they underwent training in
Lebanon before being sent to the
Aegean.
He took command of the LRDG at the end of 1943 after the death of his predecessor
Jake Easonsmith during the
Battle of Leros. He based himself at
Bari in southern
Italy from which he mounted a successful raid on
Corfu and staged operations in the
Dalmatian islands and
Yugoslavia. In September 1944, he was parachuted into
Albania at night. Shortly after landing he fell 30 ft into a ravine and severely damaged his spine.Daily Telegraph ,
The Daily Telegraph, November 1, 2010, accessed November 6, 2010.
Despite being in continual pain, Lloyd Owen directed
special forces operations in the mountains for the next three months. Eventually...
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