Frank Owen (1) (1905–1979)
Author of Guilty Men
For other authors named Frank Owen, see the disambiguation page.
Works by Frank Owen
Peron: his rise and fall 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Owen, Humphrey Frank
- Birthdate
- 1905-11-04
- Date of death
- 1979-01-23
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Monmouth School
Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge - Occupations
- newspaper editor
politician - Organizations
- Liberal Party
UK Parliament
Evening Standard [editor]
Daily Mail [editor] - Awards and honors
- Officer of the Order of the British Empire
- Short biography
- Humphrey Frank Owen (27 September 1905 – 23 January 1979) was a British journalist and Liberal Member of Parliament. He was a Lloyd Georgite Liberal MP for Hereford between 1929 and 1931. He worked as a journalist and became editor of the Evening Standard in 1938 and the Daily Mail in 1947. During the War he edited SEAC, The Services Newspaper of South East Asia Command. After a period as a television journalist, he again fought the Hereford seat in 1955 and in a by-election in 1956. He was one of the authors of Guilty Men, a denunciation of appeasement published in summer of 1940. He wrote a biography Tempestuous Journey: Lloyd George His Life and Times (Hutchinson of London; 1954).
- Nationality
- England
UK
Members
Reviews
Fictionalised account of the activities of real-life mercenary double agent Eddie Chapman, played here with suave, charming aplomb by Christopher Plummer. The story of how a pre-war safecracker becomes both a German and British agent is interesting but never fully catches fire and lacks any real feeling if danger or excitement. Director Terence Young tries to establish a James Bondesque atmosphere but it doesn't really work with the serious wartime nature of the material. It's a decent show more story, however, made highly watchable by Plummer's cheeky performance, essaying Chapman's amoral jauntiness to great effect. Yul Brynner gives great support as Baron Von Grunen, Chapman's monocle-sporting, aristocratic handler, while Romy Schneider delivers some fine on / off romantic interest as Helga Lindstrom. show less
Guilty Men by Cato
Every time I think that the news is awful, that things cannot be worse, I try to imagine what it was like in the spring of 1940. The Germans took basically all of western Europe in a series of lightning strikes, eventually defeating the most powerful military on the continent, the French. The British managed to evacuate hundreds of thousands of their troops from Dunkirk, but just barely. A German invasion of England seemed imminent.
At this dark time, three journalists — including future show more Labour Party leader Michael Foot — wrote this short book. The ‘guilty men’ of the title are not just the appeasers, above all Chamberlain, but all the other Tory fools who saw no particular need to get Britain ready for the coming war. Their blind overconfidence — believing in the futility of war, in Mr. Hitler’s trustworthiness, in the invincibility of the British empire — led them to do almost nothing to re-arm in time. It was only with Winston Churchill’s arrival at Number 10 that Britain’s real war against Germany began.
At the time, the book was hated by most reviewers. But it was a hugely popular best-seller and I can see why. The case against Chamberlain and his cronies, usually based on their own words, is essentially unanswerable. Yet even today there are people — including some noted historians — who buy into the myth that Britain used the year after the Munich pact, as well as the next eight months of ‘phoney war’, to rearm. They did nothing of the sort. When the British forces were being kicked off the continent it was entirely due to the fact that the Germans too had time to rearm, which they did rather effectively, and their Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe were far better equipped and battle-ready than the British forces trapped on that French beach.
Looking back decades later, Michael Foot wrote about the revisionists who were already encouraging a more generous evaluation of Chamberlain. He would have none of it. The old umbrella-carrying fool, with a worthless piece of paper in his hands, proclaiming ‘peace in our time’ when there was no peace — he nearly brought an end to Britain as an independent country. Churchill arrived in the nick of time to prevent a disaster.
There are bits of this hastily-scribbled book that don’t read as well today as they may have in 1940. The comments about Poland, for example, are very unfair to the Poles and inaccurate too. But on the whole, this books and the arguments it makes about appeasement and the need to stand up to bullying dictators is as relevant today as when it was first written. show less
At this dark time, three journalists — including future show more Labour Party leader Michael Foot — wrote this short book. The ‘guilty men’ of the title are not just the appeasers, above all Chamberlain, but all the other Tory fools who saw no particular need to get Britain ready for the coming war. Their blind overconfidence — believing in the futility of war, in Mr. Hitler’s trustworthiness, in the invincibility of the British empire — led them to do almost nothing to re-arm in time. It was only with Winston Churchill’s arrival at Number 10 that Britain’s real war against Germany began.
At the time, the book was hated by most reviewers. But it was a hugely popular best-seller and I can see why. The case against Chamberlain and his cronies, usually based on their own words, is essentially unanswerable. Yet even today there are people — including some noted historians — who buy into the myth that Britain used the year after the Munich pact, as well as the next eight months of ‘phoney war’, to rearm. They did nothing of the sort. When the British forces were being kicked off the continent it was entirely due to the fact that the Germans too had time to rearm, which they did rather effectively, and their Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe were far better equipped and battle-ready than the British forces trapped on that French beach.
Looking back decades later, Michael Foot wrote about the revisionists who were already encouraging a more generous evaluation of Chamberlain. He would have none of it. The old umbrella-carrying fool, with a worthless piece of paper in his hands, proclaiming ‘peace in our time’ when there was no peace — he nearly brought an end to Britain as an independent country. Churchill arrived in the nick of time to prevent a disaster.
There are bits of this hastily-scribbled book that don’t read as well today as they may have in 1940. The comments about Poland, for example, are very unfair to the Poles and inaccurate too. But on the whole, this books and the arguments it makes about appeasement and the need to stand up to bullying dictators is as relevant today as when it was first written. show less
This was a fascinating account of the abdication crisis as it happened, and the media's role in driving it. It is not animpartial account but it is a great read, and a wonderful contemporary story. It reveals a lot about British culture at the time and about a moment in the history of journalism and politics. Great find.
Guilty men by Cato
Owen, Frank (Contributor); Foot, Michael (Contributor); Howard, Peter (Contributor)
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THE WAR ROOM (1)
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- 10
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- Rating
- 3.9
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- ISBNs
- 53