The Owen Gun, Introduction to the Story.
Why a book or a History of the Owen Gun, from Ron Owen?
Well first of all let me say that we have no evidence that the Owen’s of Wollongong, New South Wales are direct relatives to the Owen’s of Manchester and North Wales. However we do know that the name Owen commenced with one person who was the son of Nail of the Nine Hostages, County Tyrone (Land of Owen) and Inishowen (Island of Owen) in Ireland are named after him, but that was 1600 years ago. Except for the adopted, all Owen’s born are his direct descendants.
I suppose, I always found it fascinating that another Owen was so similar in his interest in firearms and things that go bang. With over thirty five years in the firearm trade, I have had many people ask if there was any blood connection with Evelyn Owen. One I will never forget was under the impression that the inventor of the Owen Gun was a Lady Evelyn Owen and I had to show a photograph of him with the gun, before the customer would believe that he had been misinformed.
Evelyn Owen at aged 15, approxmate time of when he began his sub machine gun inventions.
The photographs of Evelyn Owen was another reason for me to be interested in him as his features remind me of my family members as I have compared photographs of him with my family and for me personally (highly likely only apparent to me) the resemblance is incredible.
Ron the Recruit in 1963, at 15 (look at those flapping ears). Ron Owen the writer of this tome.
Of course my interest increased when I found that John, Henry and Thomas Owen all were cannon makers for Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth the First. Was it true that certain interests were hereditary? I have actually viewed and touched cannons made by these men so many hundreds of years ago. (one was recovered from the Mary Rose) Not just admiring there workmanship but appreciating what they wanted themselves from their art form.
One of the earliest Owen Gun's made for King Henry Eighths flagship the Mary Rose, by the Kings Cammon Makers John and Henry Owen.
The Owen brothers art form or Owen hereditary skills is definitely not what this book is about.
This book is the story of the life and times of the Owen Gun, the why, where and when, how it worked why it worked and why many opposed its introduction. It is a story of struggle, the struggle of a young man with the best of motives and the struggle of a country that had the best of motives. It could have been a rags to riches story but sadly that was not to be, as we all seem to be eventually betrayed by what we work for most, our country and our nation.Even our country has gone from rags to riches, been betrayed and is quickly returning to rags again.
Many people make the great mistake of believing that guns kill and if they did not exist the world would be a safer place. If that were true we would all attack them with a fury but is not true, people kill people, if there were no guns they would make something worse either by nano or nuclear, if they want to stop people killing people they would have to remove that capacity at birth as people kill people. They are very good at it, firearms are only one of hundreds of tools, that people kill with. They do not understand that guns, are tools and are also just as capable in saving life, and that is magnified by the fact that one gun can save the life of many, and many guns can save the lives of millions. All that is relative is what side you are on. If Australia had no capacity to manufacture guns in World War Two or had no guns at all the Japanese would have had no opposition in New Guinea they would have landed on the Australian mainland. The only language spoken in Australia today would have been Japanese, there would not have been a base for the Americans to fight back from, this countries huge natural resources would have been quickly diverted to assist the Japanese war effort. The Australian people as were all the people that fell under the Japanese Co Prosperity Sphere were completely disposable, in Northern China besides using the people for bayonet practice they used them en-mass for experimentation in germ warfare. So no one can argue that guns do not save lives, if we did not have them Australia and the Australian people would not exist to day. It is just a shame that they did not have more of them, as more men died from the lack of them. In fact if Australia had been heavily armed prior to World War Two the Japanese might have chosen to put more effort into conquering India.
The Owen Gun saved many thousands of lives and would have saved many thousand more if it had been introduced earlier. If this book succeeds in anything, if it only informs people so that the mistakes are all not made over and over again, as all too often the macabre dance of history repetitively and rhythmically beats the drums of war.
World at War
“Parable of the Young Man and the Old”:
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went, And took the fire with him, and a knife. And as they sojourned, both of them together, Isaac the first-born spake, and said, My Father, Behold the preparations, fire and iron, But where’s the lamb for this burnt-offering? Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps, And builded parapets the trenches there, And stretched forth the knife to slay his son. When lo! an angel called him out of heaven, Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, Neither do anything to him. Behold, A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns; Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. But the old man would not so, but slew his son, And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
By Wilfred Owen.
War is Peace, and Peace is War.
People hate war, hate the loss of millions and hate the waste of war. Sometimes war is not just war, often it is survival. Many cannot see that, as many millions die in wars, as many die, in the name of peace. For those who want peace have to be prepared for war. Those that don’t, do not die peacefully. The only true peace is death, war is death, so peace is war. An unfortunate fact of the human species.
Does God give equal glory to those that were sacrificed for War or Peace ? There is no earthly glory good enough, for those who gave their greatest gift, their lives, so that others may live. For them, save a place inside of you, and save a backward glance, as you go through your life, for you can see places they can no longer go. There is no shame, to feel love for those who made that great sacrifice. Hold on, to what they gave you, and the examples they have showed, so their death is remembered, until your own. When people have been secure for a generation and say ‘peace at any price’. When they have forgotten that someone else has to fight, so they may live, spare one second to remember those quiet heroes who were sacrificed on the alters of peace, in wars gone by.
Australia lost over 39000 sons, husbands and fathers during World War Two. This is a staggering toll exacted on a country with a very small population. Subsequent betrayals and loss of freedoms might never have happened had these young men (or their sons) come home. As we’re now invaded (without protest), it’s hard to imagine a time these days when young Australians would willingly sign away their very lives for an ideal of saving their country. Their sacrifices should not be judged by the state of the nation today. Their courage and gallantry is as unfamiliar to us as their convictions of fighting for freedom’s cause. Spare them two minutes of remembrance at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day and read on, find where those people came from and what moulded there resolution.
The 1930s
The World that the Owen Gun was conceived into. What made the Owen Gun so important for Australia in World War Two?
William Shakespeare wrote in ‘As you like it’
“All the World’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”
As this story of the ‘Owen Gun’ of ‘ Evo Owen’ and all the other characters is a drama which everyone must learn from, the stage has to be set. To know how important the play is, the reader has to realize what was going on at the time of this drama. Australia and all the people in it were fighting for their lives. If Japan had succeeded in occupying Australia no one was under any illusions, they all knew that there lives would be very temporary. Local populations or Prisoners of War were of very little value to the Japanese, Japan was not short of people, just short of food, so they worked them with a diet below the starvation rate which ensured that death was just a matter of time. People do not vote for war or want war, war is forced upon them as ultimately and in this instance it was total war, the only alternative was extinction.
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will all, one by one, become an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Edmund Burke
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