Lt Cmdr William Lloyd Owen
Bill Owen was born in Pembrokeshire near Cardigan, Wales, on the 16th of December 1927. After spending most of his early years and school holidays in Khartoum, Sudan where his father was the Chief Justice, he entered the Royal Navy as a Cadet Midshipman on the 1st of December 1941 aged 13 to train at the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth.
After graduating as a Midshipman on the 1st of May 1945 Bill underwent further training in the training cruiser HMS Frobisher and, later, HMS Glasgow, Bill was promoted Acting Sub Lieutenant in May 1947 with four and a half months' time gained.
In late August 1948 he obtained his Royal Aero Club Aviation certificate on a Tiger Moth Biplane at the Royal Naval Air Service station at Gosport (now HMS Sultan), before commencing his submarine training in 1949.
This was followed by a posting to the T Class submarine HMS Tantalus. Tantalus was a veteran of the war which would be scrapped the following year. Subsequent postings included Springer, Totem (3rd Hand), Scorcher, Sanguine, Trump and Tiptoe (as First Lieutenant).
In 1964 Lt Cmdr William Lloyd Owen of Goodwin's Cottage, Hartley, near Cranbrook, became the new Captain of HMS Opossum. one of the Navy's latest conventional submarines. He had earlier commanded submarines Subtle and Anchorite. Lt Cmdr Owen, aged 36. was married and had two sons and three daughters.
HMS Opossum was being built at Cammel Laird's in Birkenhead near Liverpool and, during his command (1964-65), ventured the furthest north under the Arctic ice cap by a conventionally powered submarine. While surface snorting in a polynya, the Officer of the Watch reported to Bill that what appeared to be glow worms were flying past the bridge. On being ordered below, a Geiger Counter 'swipe' revealed loud crackling noises. The conclusion was that this was actually fallout from Soviet nuclear tests. Fortunately, none seemed the worse for the experience even though the air coming in through the induction mast and being therefore distributed throughout the boat must have had some contamination.
During exercise Portent, Lt Cdr Owen, CO of HMS Opossum and members of the crew ashore of the pack ice at 76 degrees north, the furthest a conventionally powered submarine had been in 1965.
In 1967, Bill Owen transferred to the RAN as an Acting Commander, initially serving at HMAS Penguin in command of the RN 4th Submarine Squadron. On the 18th of August 1967, he became the commissioning Commanding Officer of HMAS Platypus and inaugural Commander of the First Australian Submarine Squadron.
Bill was confirmed in the rank of Commander in June 1969 and would remain in command of the Submarine Squadron until 1971, guiding it though its formative years.
Following a posting to HMAS Cerberus as the Training Commander in 1970, Bill joined the Naval Staff in Canberra as Director of Submarine Policy, where he served until 1975. During his tenure, he initiated a number of projects to enhance the warfighting capability of the Oberon class submarines; a combination that was later dubbed the Submarine Weapons Update Program (SWUP). SWUP had far-reaching implications since the submarines now had the ability to reach their potential as strategic assets for Australia and it provided the confidence, many years later, for Australia to embark on the New Construction Submarines project that delivered the Collins class submarines. During this period, Government approved an expansion of the Submarine Force to six.
In January 1976, he would return to Sydney to command Platypus and the Submarine Squadron for a second time.
This was coincident with the Australian submarine service being stretched with the introduction into service of HMA Submarines Orion and Otama, creating a manpower problem compounded by many of the early RAN submariners discharging.
He was promoted to Captain on the 30th of June 1976. In December 1978, one of his final duties as the Squadron Commander was to welcome the newly commissioned HMAS Otama to the Squadron, in which his son Frank Owen was serving.
Bill's final posting was as Naval Officer Commanding Queensland. He retired from the RAN in 1983 and initially settled in Brisbane where he remained active in the defence sector as a consultant to industry.
Bill and his wife Ann moved back to the Canberra region in 1989, settling in the rural area of Wamboin. After Ann's passing in 2013, Bill sold the Wamboin property and, after several years at The Grange in Deakin, moved to Warrigal Care in Bundanoon, NSW for the final 12 months of his life.
Bill was gifted in the arts with great skill on the piano and also with pen and brush.
Captain William Lloyd Owen RAN (Rtd) passed away at Bundanoon on the 4th of October 2024 aged 96. He was survived by his son Commander Frank Owen OAM RAN (Rtd), daughters Louise and Sarah, son Charlie, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Tragically, Ann and Bill lost two daughters Jane, aged 11, in 1972 and Mary, aged 46, in 2003
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