Sean Feast speaks to Fighting High author Dr. Robert Owen about advertising, the 617 Squadron Association, and why there has never been a biography of Willie Tait.
As the Official Historian to the 617 Squadron Association, it’s fair to say Rob Owen knows a fair amount about the Dam Busters and Bomber Command. His introduction to arguably the most famous of all squadrons in the Royal Air Force came around the age of nine, when a teacher gave him a paperback copy of The Dam Busters to read during the school holidays.
“It wasn’t exactly a light-bulb moment,” Rob says, “but after I’d been to the Imperial War Museum and seen the model of the dams used in the briefing for Operation Chastise, the seed had been well and truly sown.”
Originally from South Birmingham and educated at the local Grammar School, Rob’s mother was a teacher and his father an electrical engineer: “My father had been ground crew with 9 Squadron during the early part of the war, which as anyone who knows anything about Bomber Command will know is ironic given my later association with 617, and the great rivalry that existed between the two squadrons.”
At school he received little by way of an careers’ advice and was streamed to go to university. He read a combined arts degree with archaeology and geography, followed by a Post Grad in Museum Exhibition Design and Display. Quickly recognising that a career in local authorities wasn’t for him, he moved into the advertising industry, working all over the UK before joining McCann-Erickson in London in a client services role: “I was part of their international division,” he explains, “working on brands such as Coca-Cola, Tia Maria and Lloyds Bank International.”
Approached by rival agency Saatchi & Saatchi, Rob literally moved over the road as an Account Manager for the firm’s British Airways account, working on the long-haul inbound advertising for BA for markets which included Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Latin America. A move client-side to United Distillers was followed by a return to agency land to work on the American Airlines account. He subsequently joined a team of like-minded professionals setting up their own marketing consultancy, bringing creative expression and copywriting to his client servicing skills.
Developing a lifelong interest in 617 Squadron
Throughout his career, and indeed during his time as an undergraduate, he maintained an interest in 617. In learning that Bill Townsend, one of the Dams Raid pilots lived not three miles from his home, he arranged a visit, taking a copy of Bruce Robertson’s book (Lancaster: The story of a famous Bomber) which Bill kindly signed.
“He wrote: ‘To Robert Owen. Keep all your hobbies going. Especially this one.’ I think I’ve honoured his wish,” he adds.
Through Bill, and over time, Rob expanded his network of contacts within the 617 Squadron Association, building their trust: “All of them had been wartime members of the squadron and included Benny Goodman, Tom Bennett, Tony Iveson, and John Pryor.”
Rob also began establishing links with the modern-day squadron: “I guess I was on their radar, and so when they were looking to re-furbish the museum at their base in Scampton they asked if I would help with writing the history. This meant spending several days on the base, staying in their Mess, researching the Operations Record Books and other material which they held to create the 617 Squadron story.”
Becoming the 617 Squadron’s Honorary Historian
With the 50th anniversary of the Dams Raid, the Association asked if Rob could assist with fielding enquiries from the press: “Because I worked in advertising, it was assumed I knew something about the workings of the press,” he laughs. “I was then asked if I would be prepared to take on a more formal role as Honorary Historian and of course I said ‘yes’.”
Since then, Rob has helped with further commemorations and anniversaries, being co-opted onto a Ministry of Defence Committee tasked with organising the 75th anniversary celebrations. He continues to field enquiries from the media, researchers and enthusiasts, working closely with the current squadron’s service historian.
It was not until 2013 that he first became a published author: “Steve Darlow, the publisher at Fighting High, approached me via Tony Iveson with an idea to create a book dedicated to those who had taken part in the Dams Raid but had failed to return. I wrote both the foreword and the postscript, but also two dedicated chapters on Bill Astell and Robert Urquhart.”
The success of Dam Busters: Failed to Return was followed by other projects including V-Weapons Bomber Command: Failed to Return and the Battle of Berlin: Failed to Return, also with Fighting High, and featuring chapters on 617 Squadron aircrew. He also worked on the International Bomber Command Centre commemorative work: Their Story, Our History. These were also collaborations, but in 2014 Fighting High published Henry Maudslay Dam Buster, which was a solo project: “It had started out as a private project for the Maudslay family who had given me exclusive access to their family archive,” Rob explains. “Such was the quality of the material that it was deserving of a book in its own right.”
(The 2014 launch of Henry Maudslay Dam Buster at IWM Duxford)
Revisiting Leonard Cheshire’s classic wartime memoir, Bomber Pilot
More recently, in 2019, Rob revisited Leonard Cheshire’s famous wartime autobiography, Bomber Pilot which had originally been published in January 1943: “I’d previously revisited Guy Gibson’s classic Enemy Coast Ahead but with Bomber Pilot I was able to go into more depth,” he says.
“I agreed with Steve that we didn’t want to interfere or in any way adulterate the original text, but rather split the book into two sections, with the second section giving greater insight and detail on each chapter in the form of a narrative. We wanted to publish something that appealed to a modern readership but that also gave something to an audience that was already more informed. It works very well.”
Bomber Pilot is not the only title regarding Leonard Cheshire in which Rob has had a hand. He has been a long-time friend of the biographer Richard Morris – having been introduced to Morris via 617 Squadron legend David Shannon – and helped him with material for his books on Gibson, Cheshire, and more recently, Barnes Wallis. Perhaps the biography that has so far eluded them both is the story of James ‘Willie’ Tait who succeeded Cheshire as Officer Commanding 617 Squadron and achieved public fame for his part in the sinking of the Tirpitz. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order no fewer than four times and the Distinguished Flying Cross twice:
Cheshire and Tait: the great innovators
“Tait is the obvious omission,” Rob continues. “Both Cheshire and ‘Tirpitz’ Tait were great innovators, taking the view that it was they and their crews who were flying the aircraft and operating the equipment, so it was they who were best placed to help resolve any problems there might be, such as when the Halifax was suffering stabiliser issues causing them to stall. They were also both keen to experiment; Cheshire, for example, explored dive bombing with a Halifax, even fitting a ring and bead sight to his cockpit window as a bombing aid.
“All those who served under Tait and Cheshire admired them in equal measure, even though they were very different characters. Cheshire was rather flamboyant, whereas Tait was more reserved. In his lifetime Tait was not interested in writing his memoirs and that’s possibly why he remains partly in Cheshire’s shadow. It’s a legacy that still exists today, and since anyone who served with him during the war is now long since gone, it’s probable it will stay that way.”
Rob is very much a details man. His 2023 book Breaking the German Dams, for example, delivers a minute-by-minute account of Chastise. Typically, Rob seeks to get behind the topline stories and delve deeper into the strategies and thinking that ultimately lead to operational decisions. He admits that whenever writing an article, the thesis for his Doctorate, or a book, brevity does not always come naturally. “To include the detail, you still have to cover the basic ground, which inevitably increases the wordcount,” he says.
What he does know, however, is that he is forever learning and discovering new things about 617: “They say that the older you get the more you know. That’s not quite true. I find that the more you learn the more you realise just how little you know,” he jokes.
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