John Sumner Owens

John Sumner was a superb navigator, receiving very good results in his navigator course. John was awarded a navigator badge on 16/4/43. His instructor commented that John had worked very hard in his course. Many in the higher ranks have recommended John for commision. John was first assigned to a general reconnaissance squadron, he was then moved to an overseas transit depot on 12/5/43. Then to the royal air force on 22/6/43, at that point he was embarked to Halifax on 23/6/43 then disembarked to the U.K on 1/7/43. Afterwards, he became part of the Canadian intelligence (General Staff Officer 1), he moved onto the progress review committee on 2/7/43. He then joined the operational training unit on 19/7/43, then became an acting lieutenant on 3/10/43. He was moved to the Mediterranean from the U.K on 3/10/43, where he became part of the motorboats, submarine chasers on 19/10/43. After he moved into the squadron (38 Sqdn) on  17/11/43, where afterwards he went missing from an operation on ⅚ /4/44. 

Owens, John Sumner went missing from an air operation overseas. Presumed dead on April 6, 1944. A Wellignton aircraft MG796 with Hercules XVII engines carrying a crew including John, was reported missing on the night of April 5/6th, 1944. This aircraft was on an offensive reconnaissance patrol along the South Eastern shores of Greece. The crew had been briefed to search harbours and attack enemy shippings. A burial service was conducted for the crew by a local priest and the bodies were buried about 10 yards from a small spring near the monastery of St. Stephen.

Primary Source Documents :https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/detail/1282095?John%20Sumner%20Owens 

'If we do preserve it, we honour them, and when we in our turn pass on, we will know that behind us lives a generation of free men and of free women to be the keepers of this great heritage of ours - Canada.'

- Ian A. McPhee, former student at GCI, 1937.