Geoffrey Brian Cowen

Geoffrey Brian Cowen was born around 1920 and grew up as the son of Charles Edmund and Margaret Cowen, a family settled at Kitale in the Kenya Highlands. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and, by mid-1941, was serving as a Sergeant pilot with No. 139 Squadron RAF, a day and night bomber unit flying Bristol Blenheim Mk.IV aircraft from bases in East Anglia on anti-shipping sweeps over the North Sea and the Low Countries. In September 1941 Cowen and Pilot Officer Charles Digges led a two-aircraft strike against a large enemy tanker off Blankenberge on the Belgian coast; despite fierce and accurate anti-aircraft fire from a formidable escort of six armed vessels and four E-boats, both pilots pressed their attacks from mast height, scored direct hits, and left the tanker engulfed in flames — it was seen to have sunk within the hour. For this act of sustained courage Cowen was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal, gazetted on 26 September 1941. He died on 4 January 1942, aged twenty-one, shortly before No. 139 Squadron converted to Lockheed Hudsons and deployed to Burma, and was buried in Cirencester (Chesterton) Cemetery, Gloucestershire, where his grave carries the inscription “Through Death’s Portal into Life.” Note: our database records this man’s decoration as DFC, but both the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the RAF Commands awards database confirm the award was the Distinguished Flying Medal (DFM), the NCO equivalent of the DFC and appropriate to Cowen’s rank of Sergeant.