Local Man Hopes Others Can Learn From His Own Experiences

Herb Owen recalls a lifetime of memories

04-19-2010
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Amelia Island, Fla., April 19, 2010 - Herb Owen is a modest man in a world that thinks everyone is interesting enough to have three online profiles and by-the-minute status updates.

In fact, the Amelia Island resident often stops mid-tale to ask listeners if his stories of surviving World War II or eating lunch on the sun-warmed rocks of Stonehenge are "too boring."

Owen was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in the early 1900s, and was one of three children. Following his father's job as a salesman, the Owen family moved to several cities before finally settling in New Britain, Conn.

Owen describes his childhood growing up in an old farmhouse as idyllic, and often helped his neighbors milk their dairy cows. As a young man, he had many hobbies but none captured his imagination as much as building model airplanes.

"It's funny how what's going on in the world shapes our own lives," Owen said. "Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic in 1927 and from then on, I was hooked on airplanes."

Owen participated successfully in many national model airplane competitions and even garnered a world record leading to his desire to pursue a career in aeronautical engineering after high school. But despite being accepted at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he took his father's advice and attended Wesleyan College, which was closer to home and featured a liberal-arts program. After his freshman year, Owen decided against a career in engineering and instead pursued a degree in economics.

After college, Owen moved to New York City where he took a job selling Scotch tape on the streets of Sixth Avenue for 3M, a fledgling company at that time. It was there at a hockey game in Madison Square Garden that he met his future wife Alice, whom he married a year later in 1941.

The newlyweds moved to a small apartment in Connecticut, but it wouldn't be long before Owen would find himself thousands of miles from home sailing with thousands of other young men towards the battlefields of Europe.

Recognizing his draft card would be called soon, Owen participated in a training course that taught soon-to-be soldiers how to operate radio and communications equipment for the Army Signal Corps. When his number was called, this training served him well, and Owen avoided a future as a foot soldier. Since he was assigned to a division that saw heavy action during D-Day, his position as a secret code equipment operator could very well have saved his life.

"We landed on the second day of the invasion at Utah Beach," Owen remembers. "There was a little shooting going around, and the German pilots would try to pick us off as we moved along the small country roads. When they would swoop down the center of the road, we'd dive to the side and give them a five finger salute when they would fly by."

Owen was awarded five battle stars for his division's participation in heavy combat in France, but he says the most dangerous part of the war was the trip back to the United States.

"We sailed out of Antwerp, Belgium towards Boston and the trip was supposed to take 14 days," Owen said. "But we had to sail through a huge storm, and the trip across the Atlantic took a total of 30 days. We were low on food and desperate to get off the ship. Boy was it ever good to get home."

After a joyful reunion with his wife, Owen returned to 3M for three years before making the decision to take a position with the Chadfield Paper Company. Starting as a junior salesman, Owen became president of the company in just 15 years, and retired as majority owner in 1981.

Throughout his lifetime, Owen and his wife shared a love for deep water sailing and spent many years racing and cruising sailboats. Owen was an active member of the New York Yacht Club, the Essex Yacht club, the Milford Yacht Club, the Card Sound Sailing Club and also acted as commodore of the prestigious Off Soundings Club, known for deep water racing.

Now living at Osprey Village, a retirement community in Amelia Island, Fla., Owen hopes others can learn from what he's experienced first-hand.

"I believe in people caring for each other . I think that's terribly important," Owen asserts. "I saw so much human suffering in WWII, and it made me realize just how small this world is.

Once you've been in war, you hate it," he continued. "Human relations have come a long way since then, but we have to be careful that as a country, we continue to improve."