P.S. Owens portrait

A portrait of Pete as a young man


Portrait of 'Uncle Peter' hung beside his mother's piano	Pete (center) with pals in Australia	Pete with B-17 bomber on tarmac in Las Vegas, 1941

Pete as known to family and friends

When I was a child in the 1950s, our family would frequently visit our grandparents, Nellie and Harold Owens, who we knew as 'Gammie' and 'Gamp.' In their living room was an enormous portrait of their son "Uncle Peter." By then it was known he had been shot down in the war, and declared dead by the U.S. Army.

But, there is always some doubt about MIAs, and the crushing loss felt by our grandparents translated itself into a veil of silence. 'Pete,' as my father and his brother 'Jack' referred to him was an open family wound. In personal and detailed log books kept by my grandfather on an island he had purchased in 1943 on the St. Lawrence River, Pete's disappearance was never mentioned, nor his death. But little things emerged in brief flashes, mostly from our grandmother, Nellie Owens, Pete's mother.

Nellie was an accomplished pianist and spoke fondly of Pete's fine singing voice. He was a bright, fun-loving young men with an artist's sensibility and a sportsman's sense of adventure--something of a Hemingwayesque figure, roguish yet refined. He and his friends in the Barneveld area went on frequent fishing and hunting expeditions to the Adirondacks and upstate New York lakes.

They caught fish, hunted ducks, ran a bobsled at Lake Placid, skied in the mountains, and enjoyed themselves immensely. By several accounts, Pete was very popular among women, a handsome, slight figure. Before entering the military, he attended and graduated from Union College in Schnectedy, then entered the Army Air Force as an enlisted man.

Once a plane landed in a field near his home, and his witnessing of the unusual event prompted his interest in flying. One of his close friends, John Kempf was a flying instructor, but Pete probably never got a chance to train as a pilot, according to an old friend, Bob Hayes, interviewed below.

A letter from Pete's girlfriend

Peter was a really great guy and we had many good times together. I was greatly saddened when his plane went down and know how desperately his family searched for information about it. What a miracle that his remains have been found and that he is now, at last, at rest in Arlington.

I first knew Peter in the 8th grade at the Utica Country Day School when my family moved to Utica. We started an interested relationship when we were in high school. I suppose I was his girl from then on, and when he got his license to drive at 16, we were part of a group that hung out together on week-ends most of the time. We graduated in 1934 and in the spring of 1935 I went to New York to work. Peter was then a freshman at Union and I went to Spring house parties with him for all four years. We had a rather tempestuous relationship but always managed to get back together again. Even after I did the almost unforgivable by having a late date with Bim Ely after my senior prom. After he graduated from college I saw him only when I went back to Utica-which was quite frequently, and I do not know how, why or when he went into the service.

He really hated New York City and only came down once that I remember. His money was stolen from his hotel room he shared with John Knower and that only deepened his hatred. We wrote during the war and his last letter from Australia said he forgave me for anything and everything and hoped we'd see each other when he came home. Sadly my answering letter was returned much later marked "missing in action".

I kept in touch with his family and shared their sorrow when there was no further word on the crash. He was a very regular kind of guy with lovely deep blue eyes and a sly sense of humor. I've thought of him often through the years and was really happy when I learned that his plane had been found and his remains identified.

When I married, his mother sent me a beautiful silver dish I cherish with a note saying she knew how fond Peter had been of me. Just as I was of him. He was a great guy and could have had a wonderful life but for the cruelty and waste of war.

Angelica Cannon, 14 March 00

Pete was quick to make friends, and during a leave in Australia, hung out with buddies shown above. Friends who survived him were extraordinarily loyal, and more than 50 years after his death, speak of Pete with continued fondness.

Little is known about his early very childhood. But according to his cousin, Peter Van Kuran, Pete attended the Utica Country Day School and was "very well liked by both the boys and girls in his class."

Van Kuran reports that Peter later "drove a sporty Ford convertible sedan which was particularly appealing to the girls. Peter was a good looking young man, fun loving, and good natured." VanKuran recalls that Pete "endlessly" practiced playing a trumpet in his room.

His friend Bob Hayes, who knew Pete at Union College, said that Pete had an old, red pick-up truck, and "we would put an organ in the back and went around singing caroles" at Christmas. Pete earned his B.A. in 1939 at Union and was a member of the Sigma Phi fraternity. Hayes said Pete was very popular with the girls and did a lot of dating. He was "great with the singing" and "good at beer parties."

Pete at 14 years, Utica Country Day

Another friend, John Knower, recalls Pete as a child at the family house on Genesee Street near Jewett Place in Utica, New York. "We had a small gang of boys who played there. His big brother Jack and Pete--both fine skiers--went skiing off Gaus Road in Barneveld, and one winter Pete broke his leg skiing. He was kept in bed for a long time," recalls Knower, and "every afternoon I came to his house and we played all sorts of games, and that's how we became close friends." Pete's leg bones would play a role again in helping identify him after his death. One of the remains found at the crash site was a man's femur. It was eventually sectioned for DNA analysis, and DNA strands from the femur were compared with blood samples given by brother Jack before he died in 1996. It was a positive match, but Jack never knew with certainty despite mounting evidence at the time that the plane was indeed, Pete's. Jack didn't speak a great deal about Pete but often included him as a presence in stories he told us about fishing and bird-hunting trips, skiing adventures, and life in upstate New York when both brothers were young and filled with great energy and a love of nature. Jack could not comfortably talk about his younger brother, but many of his stories about his own youth would begin, "Your Uncle Pete and I...."

According to Pete's friend Knower, "Pete liked to take us camping at Pine Lake where the Owens' had an interest in one of the camps." They took canoe trips on the lakes, and they skiied at Gore Mountain. "At Placid a friend of mine was racing a two-man AAU bobsled race, and talked us into being the crew for the four-man in the afternoon." Knower spent time at the Owens' summer place on farmland near Trenton Falls. Older brother Jack and his friend Bill Westcott had old Model Ts they kept in a barn, "and we were not even allowed to look at them," said Knower. Brother Jack was a tough customer who prided himself as a hard-nosed, hard-hitting hockey and football player.

Pete is remembered fondly by Angelica Cannon (see letter) and Betty Locke whom he dated. Betty wrote, "I can remember being delighted when he invited me to go with him to some kind of gala dance at the Ft. Schuyler. When he called for me, he was wearing a brand new, beautiful tuxedo he had received from his parents for Christmas and was SO proud of it. Of course, we had a lovely time and his older brother Jack asked me to dance several times. I know it was just to help his brother out and make me look "popular." Betty related his husband's memory of Pete getting rid of skunks under people's porches during an infestation at the time in Barneveld. "Peter was the only resident to take the job. He spent most of his summer flying with John Kempf and working on his (Kempf's) plane.

Before the war Pete worked for his father, Harold, at his crushed stone business called Eastern Rock Products. But Pete had his own schemes for the future cooked up by himself and Bob Hayes. One idea was to try to get into "plastics" and another notion they sharred was to buy themselves a Drive-in Theater. "But we didn't have any money, and nothing transpired," said Hayes.

When the war broke out, Pete and Bob joined the Army Air Force. Pete was assigned to bombers in the Pacific and Hayes to fighters in Europe. They were split up, and after exchanging a few letters, Hayes learned that Pete's plane had been shot down.

Hayes said he thought Pete was selected for bombers because at five-feet five inches and 128 pounds, he could fit in the cramped tail gunner's position in a B-17, despite size-nine feet, pretty big for a man so small. I asked why Pete didn't train to become a pilot, given his interest in flying and his advanced education. "They just put you where they needed you," said Hayes, and "he was small and that was useful to them." There wasn't a lot of choice, and these decisions were made quickly, said Hayes.

There was an aura about Pete that made him engaging to friends and the life of every party. He was, of course, among thousands of men with great vitality who died abruptly and unceremoniously in World War II. Death notices were grimly impersonal, typed on drab forms, void of emotion or gratitude.

The army has learned its lesson, however, and the burial of the eleven men aboard was a moving tribute not only to the men but to the dedication of the military in belatedly thanking soldiers and their families for the sacrificies of the century's greatest war.

I was given his name at birth, just two years after he was shot down. My own nephew Peter Jobes, son of my sister Sally Owens Jobes, became a second generation namesake. Peter Jobes, now a professional diver, bears a passing resemblance to his great uncle and has the same spirited gift of gab and fun-loving manner. None of us, the evidence suggests, ever inherited his musical gifts or singing voice, qualities he took to his mountain grave in Papua New Guinea. But we all remember the huge portrait of Pete (shown at top) that hung with quiet enormity in Nellie's livingroom beside her piano. Each day she played beneath his portrait until she died four decades later. He was a wonderful singer, she said, and before he died, often he sang as she played. His portrait now resides with my youngest sister Susanne who lives in West Virginia.

Last revised, April 14, 2000