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Oscar Greig was a pioneering pilot. He flew over 400 hours over the battlegrounds of World War One. In 1917, whilst on a reconnaissance flight, he was shot down by the Red Baron.

He was captured and was a prisoner of war for over a year. As a prisoner of war he was transferred to five different camps in Germany and in Poland. He eventually escaped from his final camp in Silesia and returned to his home in Devon in December 1918.

He wrote up his wartime diaries and they are part of the collections of the Imperial War Museum and the Throwleigh Archive.

Oscar’s life in Throwleigh featured gadfly planes, racehorses and explosives.

He developed two quarries on the moor and extracted blue elvan granite for local road building projects. The remains of one quarry still exist today.

His passion for the natural world led him to work with the botanist Keble Martin and to leave a legacy of 30,000 flints to the collections of Exeter Museum.

Oscar Greig was born in Sutcombe in Devon and lived at Mill Farm in Throwleigh. He took his own life in 1969.

Location: Mill Farm, Throwleigh, Devon EX20 2HX
Image shows Oscar Greig with his co-pilots at Mill Farm, courtesy of Imperial War Museums (IWM)
Readings of Oscar Greig’s diaries (IWM) by John Palmer

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