John Rowley

Around 10.00am on the 28th August 1992, in searing heat, his platoon participated in a successful assault on the Serb-held village of Cerik claiming ten enemy paramilitaries. The church bells rang as both Muslims and Croats let off huge volleys of gunfire in celebration; it was a great boost to morale at a particularly low point in the war. The Serbs had been taken by surprise and enemy dead totalled thirty-one, whilst only five Croats were wounded. John's platoon withdrew to their previous positions, leaving the village in the hands of regular units of the HVO.

After a rare and well-earned nightﾒs sleep they awoke to learn that during the night the Serbs had counter-attacked and driven the HVO out of the village. Johnﾒs platoon would have to do the same thing all over again.

Johnﾒs group was once more point section. At the outskirts of the village however, they spotted four men in HVO/Bosnian Army camouflage and confusion ensued. One of the foreign volunteers, an Austrian, called to them in Croatian, but they refused to confirm whether they were Serb, Muslim or Croat. At a range of just fifty feet a furious exchange of gunfire broke out and the unknown figures ran away. The fire was uncannily low and accurate, unlike the Serbsﾒ normally high and erratic shooting. This suggested Yugoslav Army Special Forces, in particular the use of HVO camouflage uniforms to deceive their enemies.

John warned a colleague that the latterﾒs position, a captured bunker, was attracting all the incoming enemy fire. The volunteers began raking a nearby house about 30-40 metres away held by the Serbs and were considering assaulting it when John opened up a conversation with persons unknown immediately to the right of their position. He finished with ﾓEnglishﾅUstashaﾅﾔ as the ground erupted around him and the others. There was a pause, then John called out ﾓThe Bastardsﾅ. Iﾒm hitﾅﾔ

A French volunteer, exposing himself fully to the enemy fire, pulled John into a nearby ditch, whilst another covered them with rifle fire in the direction from where the unknown threat had come. Both volunteers dragged the wounded John back along the ditch by his equipment harness to two more volunteers, the Austrian and a Czech. These two then hauled John's form another fifteen metres further down the trench. The Austrian put a wound dressing on Johnﾒs leg but at this stage it wasnﾒt known that he had also been hit in two other places. He then carried John in a firemanﾒs lift to a small pigsty another ten metres to the rear. They crouched in the small brick enclosure, pinned down by a new wave of intense and highly accurate machine gun fire.

Soon, another member of the unit, the Canadian Ronnie Pereversov (see separate entry) made it forward to the beleaguered group and administered first aid to Johnﾒs wounds. Even now John maintained his humour and kept his cool; ﾓuncomplaining and yet in obvious pain.ﾔ John had the presence of mind to inform the others that he had seen one of his assailants wearing an HV armpatch (HV were the main Croatian Army whose nearest units were based miles away in the Republic of Croatia), whilst Ronnie nursed him, wetting his lips etc., etc.

Intermittent fire was still hitting the pigsty wall and they were still in enemy held territory. Another British volunteer and the platoonﾒs commander braved the incoming fire with a tabletop as an improvised stretcher to reach Johnﾒs position.

Under fire, they ran the tabletop with John on it to the cover of a cornfield; this also presented some problems because of the density of the three metre high stalks and were forced to halt at the edge of the cornfield in full view of the enemy. Seeing this, the Austrian popped off a smoke grenade from his rifle and then joined with the Frenchman in a spirited counter-attack against the enemy to decoy them away from Johnﾒs group. Nevertheless the Serbs fired on the stranded group and Ronnie was hit in the leg.

The accumulation of several weeks without proper sleep and a diet consisting for the most part of bread and jam left the group weakened and exhausted as they collapsed into a patch of dead ground in No Manﾒs Land. One of the volunteers had single-handedly carried John on his back the whole distance from the edge of the cornfield, John encouraging him in the carrying, the hallmark of a fine soldier.

The overgrown fields were burning; claustrophobia and symptoms of asphyxia appeared amongst the struggling group. Then, through the smoke somebody saw the Croat lines. Six soldiers appeared with a proper stretcher, John was transferred onto it and carried to safety whilst the others followed on behind. The Croats moved fast; John and Ronnie were whisked away in a shrapnel-ridden ambulance yet tragically, upon reaching safety at the little hospital of Gornji Rakic John was declared dead on arrival. With an iron will he had hung on for some ninety minutes, beyond the endurance of any normal human being, but in the end he hadnﾒt made it.

The following morning, 30th August, John was buried nearby in the cemetery of Donji Lanista, a village near Markovic Polje. Despite the war having driven many local civilians away, scores turned out, braving the risk of shelling to attend the funeral. Many were openly weeping. Four volleys were fired over Johnﾒs grave as the local priest read out the funerary mass. As one volunteer recalls;

ﾓThe heavens opened upﾅ the winds blew and rain poured downﾅ lightning flashed and thunder rolled in in the early evening. John was admitted to Valhalla in a big wayﾅ literally thunderous applauseﾅ we havenﾒt seen rain in months...ﾔ

Postscript: Donji Lanista was overrun by the Serbs soon after. Its buildings were dynamited and nine people murdered. For six years John lay in the vanadlised, overgrown cemetery until the area was demilitarised in 1998. Shortly afterwards, John's brigade relocated his grave and at their own expense adorned it with a dignified black marble headstone and surround. It was visited by John's comrades in September 2003, for the first time in eleven years. A short ceremony was conducted and John's family were at last able to see where their son rests in peace.