David Lloyd Owen

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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