MAJOR OWEN REGINALD SCHREIBER MC AND BAR
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
22ND OCTOBER 1917 AGE 23
BURIED: LIJSSENTHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
This inscription sounds as though it's a quotation from a letter of condolence since it's exactly the kind of thing that commanding officers wrote to parents. And no doubt because they quoted it on their son's headstone, the words did bring Owen Schreiber's parents a measure of comfort .
At 23 when he was killed, Owen Schreiber was young to be a major but then he came from a military family. His father, Lt. Colonel Acton Lemuel Schreiber RE, commanded the Royal Engineers in the 1st Division of the British Expeditionary Force that crossed to France in August 1914, and ended the war as a Brigadier-General. Owen Schreiber was showing similar promise. He had been awarded a Military Cross in January 1916, and a bar to it in November that same year.
The Schreibers had two children. Their eldest son, Edmund Charles Acton Schreiber, also served with distinction during the First World War and like his father ended his military career, at the Second World War, as a Brigadier-General.