“I am a Captain, but as they are ten a-penny, and I had a very undistinguished & brief career at the front ( I was shot down by Richthofen in January 1917 & POW till the middle of December 1918) I do not normally use the rank”
Oscar Grieg, is not someone you will have heard of. He was in his own words a modest man. However like many people living anonymous lives around us he is someone who, it is good to get to know. For Oscar lived a remarkable life. One that lives on today in three neat cardboard boxes found within the depths of the Imperial War Museum, London. Each box containing a selection of Oscar’s remarkable letters, diaries, photographs and drawings.
Oscar in Poland 1918
Oscar was born in Devon in 1889. In 1914 the First World War came. Immediately Oscar applied to join the fledgling Royal Flying Corp, only to be disappointed when told that he would have to wait six months for a plane to become available for him.
Unwilling to wait so long to join the war, impatient, he signed up with the Red Cross. Serving as an ambulance driver in France. From his letters home this was a time of inertia, problems with his teeth, boredom, reports on the weather,and wild rumour. A life interspersed with brief,chilling moments of action and horror.
Oscar, though, had not given up his dream of flying. Eventually the call came and he finally joined the fledging Royal Flying Corp, in May 1915. After just three tuition flights and thirty five minutes solo flying, standard for the time, he took and passed his flying test.
Oscar wrote to his parents about being reprimanded by his Captai, for undertaking adventurous tricks in his new flying machine. Undaunted, he could not help sharing with them his enjoyment.
“I love flying about, and doing sharp, steeply banked turns and dives, and things. I got to 4300 (feet) the other day”
Then Oscar went to war. His departure, for a second time, told in a beautifully written letter home. One undoubtably sharing the same bravado and fears of all who have gone to war.
8th July 1915
Dear Mother & Father,
I am hoping to get off in about 1/2 an hour and get as far as Folkestone at any rate.
I am taking a Vickers across, which I suppose will be my machine out there.
I have written to almost everyone to say I am going across. I don’t know that there is much more to say. I think, that we are all sure of meeting again somewhere.
I expect, and feel, that I shall come through this war, but, one never knows. I shall write when I can.
Whatever happens, it is better that I should be doing my share, than to be amongst the crowd who are doing nothing, best of love,
Your loving son
Oscar.
Promoted to Captain, Oscar later became part of a photographic recognisance team. Flying a fragile Bi-Plane fitted with specialist cameras, observing the network of trenches at the front line. Oscar flew over four hundred hours above the battleground. A miraculous feat when you learn that the average life expectance of a British pilot was measured in flying hours. The best, at most, surviving for fifty hours.
Then, on 24th January 1917, Oscar had a fateful encounter with Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron.
“ I heard a machine gun firing, and saw several bullet holes appear. We were taken completely by surprise. The enemy fired another burst, putting the engine out of action, and hitting me in my right ankle. I tried everything to get the engine going, but it would only splutter feebly. I turned east, and landed on a plain between Vimy and Fresnoy.
When we stopped, I asked McLennan ( Oscar’s navigator) if he was hit. He said “ No, are you? I told him I had got a ‘blighty’ one in the foot, and was damed sorry to bring him there. I noticed, that he had several bullet holes in his leather coat, as I had also ”
Diaries of Oscar Greig
Crashing behind enemy lines and captured Oscar would spend the rest of his war in prisoner of war camps before finally arriving, at the end of the war, in Schweidnitz deep inside present day Poland. It was to be from here that Oscar embarked on another remarkable adventure, determined to get home for Christmas 1918.
And so on the 11th December he bribed a guard and escaped over the camp wall. That night with no money, and only the few possessions he could carry, he walked over a snow covered mountain range and crossed into Bohemia ( present day Czech Republic)
Next he travelled by foot and train, first to Prague and then into Austria. Walking over the Alpine Brenner pass, crossing into Italy, and eventually France.
Remarkably, romantically, Oscar’s wish came true. He finally made it home two days before Christmas. Arriving safely after a journey of over one and a half thousand miles. A distance crossed, against the odds, in only eleven days.
Later his exploits would continue. Delivering the post from the air across Dartmoor.Recording the wildlife of his farm and collecting over thirty thousand prehistoric flints from the area around his Devon home. A remarkable, and unique, collection of Bronze age tools and arrowheads that date from between ten, and two thousand years BC.
All in all,Oscar’s is a life less ordinary. One deserving to be celebrated, not left gathering dust within a box in a museum. For Oscar’s story is just the kind of one we need to hear more, not less, about.
drawing of a Deer, by Oscar. France 1915.
Saturday 
Kristel
June 4, 2012
You’re right, I haven’t heard of Oscar Grieg. But what an epic and inspirational life! I don’t know many Oscars, actually. But maybe it’s time I really started looking. Thanks for the post!
jonathan west
November 18, 2012
I remember Oscar, he was a friend of my Grandmother’s and my Father and I used to visit him. I remember his suicide in 1969 with great sadness. Even then, aged 11 to his 80, (I think), I thought of him as a friend. I still have two letters of his.
Fiona Kavanagh
March 10, 2013
I’m delighted to find this – last time I looked you hadn’t posted.
Oscar Grieg was my great, great, step uncle – he was the brother of my great grandmother’s second husband. Having so few blood relatives this counts as close for us. He has always been an intriguing figure in our family’s background.
We have the letters that my ggm wrote to him while he was a PoW. I was delighted to hear that he escaped from the PoW camp – this is something I remember being told, but everyone else in the family had forgotten. The story went that he escaped and came home as he was missing my ggm’s shepherd’s pie.
On another thread about flying where you mention him someone has posted that he comitted suidide – this was something that Mum suspected but was not entirely sure about. Sadly I never met him.
He was very fortunate about his timing in being shot down by the Red Baron – until about 5 victories previously von Richthoven had tended to continue shooting at the grounded enemy plane to ensure that a victory meant a kill. Family legend has it that von Richthoven landed nearby and came over to shake Oscar’s hand. McLennan meanwhile was frantically trying to set the plane alight, apparently he had difficulty getting it to burn.
His parents were somewhat unconventional and were Theosophists; something that we don’t think he followed.
davidmarkcain
April 12, 2013
Hi Fiona,
Thank you so much for the message that you posted about Oscar . It really is great to hear from you. I am sorry to not have replied sooner, but I have been waiting for some news on Oscar and hoped to update you on that too.
I first came across Oscar whilst living in Dartmoor. Oscar’s home at Mill Farm was close to my own and I became friends with its present occupier, It was through her that I learned about Oscar and was instantly enthralled by his life. I have to say it is a real treat to have made contact with one of his relatives. It really is.
It was from these beginnings that I tracked down his archives . I am a writer and a historian, so naturally there was a fascination here for me. I also felt a real affinity with Oscar, and have since been looking to how I can share his story with others, to make his life breath again.
The news I have been waiting for is in regard to an application to the heritage lottery fund that I would like to take forward. The aim is to secure funding to enable Oscar’s archives to be fully researched and made available to the public. I am looking at involving local children in Devon with a recreation of Oscar’s walk from the POW camp home to the UK. With the centenary of the First World War fast approaching ( 2014-18) the time is ideal to develop this work.
Well, today I had my first call from the lottery fund and I am pleased to say that they are taking Oscar’s story forward from the initial stage. What this means is that they think it is worth my while making a formal application. This is great news as it means Oscar is one step closer to having his story shared once more.
To fill in some of the gaps from what you wrote, I can confirm that Oscar escaped from his POW camp, in present day Poland, in 1918. Although the war had ended it was likely that he would have to wait several months to be repatriated. Oscar had a leave pass which meant he could have just walked out the gates, but from his letters he say’s that as an officer it was the done thing to escape, and so he climbed over the wall!
From here he walked a great distance across Poland and the Czech republic before crossing the Alps and into Italy. There he was able to board a train to Paris and finally Calais. He made it home to Dover on the 23rd December 1918. Home in time for Christmas.
Oscar does make reference to his parents beliefs, especially his fathers however he does not commit himself to his own thoughts. He was clearly a very educated and intellectual man who shared a wonder at the natural world and an enjoyment if flying, in what was the infancy of aviation.
I would be delighted to keep you informed of the progress of my research and once I have further information on the grant application I shall share this with you too. I am planning a further research trip to the Museum in the near future, so if you have any specific questions or information you would like to discover, then please drop me a line? I would be happy to have a dig around and see what I can find for you. I also have an excellent copy of a photo of Oscar that I would be happy to print and send on to you
As mentioned, it really is great to be able to share some of his story with a relative, as I was beginning to feel as though I would not find any surviving relations of Oscar.
You can contact me directly by e mail at davidmarkcain@gmail.com
My best wishes to you,
David Cain
Louise West
May 18, 2013
Just bought HOME DART MOOR by Garry Fabian Miller. Oscar was a friend of my Grandmother and Father. I remember visiting his house on Dartmoor. Now I live a few miles away from it.