Lewis Richard Frank Jenner was a Kent-born labourer who made his home in Cambridgeshire before serving as a driver in the Royal Army Service Corps during the Second World War. Reported missing in the Western Desert in June 1942, he was subsequently identified as a prisoner of war in Italian hands. His death was eventually presumed to have occurred between 26 October and 14 November 1942; his official commemorated date is 14 November. He was twenty-two and has no known grave. [1]
Early Life and Family
Lewis was born at Crundale, Kent, on 25 October 1920, the son of Percy Herbert Jenner and Lilian Eleanor May Norrington. His birth was registered in the East Ashford district during the final quarter of that year. In the census of 19 June 1921, he appeared as a seven-month-old infant at Sole Street, Crundale. [1]
His father, Percy, was a labourer born in Sussex, while Lilian came from Elmstead, Kent. Lewis’s older brother, Percy, was two. Three visitors bearing the Norrington surname—Mabel, Fred and Winifred—were also recorded in the household. Although the shared surname suggests a connection with Lilian’s family, the report does not establish their precise relationships. [1]
By September 1939, the Jenners had moved to Middle Watch, Swavesey, Cambridgeshire. Lewis, then eighteen, was single and employed as a contractor’s labourer. His father remained a general labourer, while his mother was recorded as undertaking unpaid domestic duties. The household also included Percy, a farm horseman, Shirley, an errand boy, and the school-aged Matthew and Roy. [1]
These records trace a young working man’s life from rural Kent to Cambridgeshire on the eve of military service. No wife or children are recorded for Lewis. His later casualty information identifies his parents as Percy Herbert and Lilian Elenor May Jenner of Cambridge, using a slightly different spelling of his mother’s name. [1]
Military Service
Lewis served as Driver T/243357 in the Royal Army Service Corps, usually abbreviated to RASC. The supplied records do not give his enlistment date, training establishment or company number. Consequently, his service can be placed securely within the corps and the Middle East theatre, but not within a particular transport company or division. [1]
The RASC was responsible for much of the British Army’s supply and transport organisation. Its work kept troops provided with necessities and moved material through the supply chain. The distinction between supplying equipment and transporting it matters: the Royal Army Ordnance Corps had responsibility for weapons and ammunition, while transport personnel helped move the loads required by formations in the field. [2]
In the Western Desert, transport was fundamental to operations. Armies depended on supplies carried over great distances, often from ports or railheads to forward maintenance areas and then to fighting units. Contemporary transport planning distinguished general-purpose lorry companies from specialist units carrying water, petrol, ammunition or tanks. Without Lewis’s company records, none of those particular duties can safely be assigned to him. [3][4]
Lewis belonged to the transport service that sustained the desert army—but his surviving records tell most clearly the story of his disappearance and captivity.
Royal Army Service Corps context and the casualty-list entries in the family report.
The Western Desert and His Disappearance
The earliest specific operational date in Lewis’s record is 27 June 1942, when he was reported missing in the Western Desert. This was a period of British retreat and severe pressure around Mersa Matruh. Contemporary reporting described Axis forces advancing towards the town and repeated Allied air attacks against them. [1][5][6]
That wider setting helps explain the circumstances in which transport troops might become separated from their formations, but it does not prove where Lewis was captured. The report supplies neither a location nor an account of the incident. It would therefore be premature to identify him as a casualty of a particular action at Mersa Matruh. [1]
His missing status appeared in a casualty-list entry dated 8 September 1942. A later entry refers back to a different list number, an inconsistency within the supplied transcription. The underlying sequence is nevertheless clear: Lewis was initially missing following the events of 27 June and was later reported to be a prisoner of war. [1]
Captivity and Unit Context at the Time of Death
Casualty List No. 981, dated 14 November 1942 in the report, changed Lewis’s status from missing to prisoner of war. Subsequent documentation explicitly described him as having been in Italian hands. That reporting date must not be mistaken for the date of his capture: the earlier operational entry places his disappearance in June. [1]
By the period in which he was presumed to have died, Lewis was therefore a captive rather than a driver carrying out confirmed operational duties with his company. The RASC’s continuing role in the desert campaign provides his military background, but cannot establish his own location or activities during captivity. His individual company, camp and movements remain unidentified in the supplied material. [1][2]
This distinction also prevents a misleading association with the Battle of El Alamein. Lewis is commemorated at Alamein, but the memorial includes men lost across several campaigns and countries. His inscription there does not mean that he died while fighting in the battle itself. [1][7]
Circumstances of Death
The official record continued to change long after Lewis’s presumed death. On 27 May 1944, Casualty List No. 1457 reclassified him as missing, having previously been reported a prisoner in Italian hands. No date for that later disappearance was supplied. This was an administrative revision of his known status, not evidence that he was still alive in May 1944. [1]
On 17 July 1944, Casualty List No. 1500 recorded him as “Presumed Died as Prisoner of War in Italian Hands”, placing his death between 26 October and 14 November 1942. His commemorative information uses the final date in that interval, 14 November. The distinction between an estimated period and an official commemorated date is essential to an accurate account of his fate. [1]
No cause of death is established. The surviving entries do not identify illness, an accident, an attack or a particular prisoner transport. Nor does the report’s broad reference to Egypt establish his exact place of death. Without further evidence, assigning him to a named camp, ship or incident would risk turning an unresolved loss into an invented narrative. [1]
Missing, prisoner of war, missing again, then presumed dead: Lewis’s casualty record preserves uncertainty rather than a complete account of his final days.
Casualty Lists Nos. 981, 1457 and 1500, transcribed in the family report.
Commemoration at Alamein and Swavesey
Lewis is commemorated on Column 75 of the Alamein Memorial in Egypt. Although the family report lists this under “Burial”, it is a memorial inscription, not an identified grave. The memorial forms the entrance to El Alamein War Cemetery, and its Land Forces panels commemorate more than 8,500 Commonwealth soldiers who have no known grave. [1][7]
Those panels encompass the campaigns in Egypt and Libya, part of the Eighth Army’s operations in Tunisia, and service in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Persia. This broad scope explains why Alamein is a place of remembrance for men whose precise burial locations and final movements remain unknown. [7]
Closer to home, Lewis’s initials appear among the Second World War names on Swavesey’s parish memorial. The dedication remembers the men of the parish who fell between 1939 and 1945. Swavesey Parish Council identifies the memorial’s location at the front of St Andrew’s churchyard, beside the main gate. [1][8]
Legacy
The report lists the 1939–45 Star, Africa Star and War Medal among Lewis’s awards, although it does not reproduce the entitlement documents. His service is also preserved in the Army Roll of Honour and the General Register Office’s armed-forces death index. These records identify the soldier consistently through his name, rank and service number. [1]
Lewis’s remembrance belongs both to Crundale, where he was born, and to Swavesey, where he worked and lived before the war. His biography cannot recover every stage of his captivity, but it can preserve what is known without concealing what remains uncertain: a labourer’s son, a young RASC driver, and a prisoner whose loss took nearly two years to receive a formal presumption of death. [1]
Sources and Further Reading
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Lewis Richard Frank Jenner — official casualty record linked in the supplied report.
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Alamein Memorial — memorial location and scope of commemoration.
- Swavesey Parish Council: Armed Forces Covenant and War Memorial — local memorial information.
- Roll of Honour: Swavesey, St Andrew’s — parish remembrance resource.
- National Army Museum: Royal Army Service Corps — corps history and supply responsibilities.
- The Crusader Project: Motor Transport Organisation and Numbers in Eighth Army — background to desert supply and transport, not a record of Lewis’s individual company.
- Individual Report for Lewis Richard Frank Jenner, supplied family-history compilation — birth, census, 1939 Register, casualty-list and memorial transcriptions, including the July 1944 presumption of death.
Sources
[1] Individual-Report-for-Lewis-Richard-Frank-Jenner.pdf https://ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/web/direct-files/attachments/141549598/b0bae12b-a290-490b-b3b6-f2fba1f66bac/Individual-Report-for-Lewis-Richard-Frank-Jenner.pdf
[2] Royal Army Service Corps https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/royal-army-service-corps
[3] Western Desert campaign – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Desert_campaign
[4] Motor Transport Organisation and Numbers in 8 Army, November … https://rommelsriposte.com/2013/11/17/motor-transport-organisation-and-numbers-in-8-army-november-1941/
[5] 27 Jun 1942 – BATTLE DEVELOPING NEAR MERSA MATRUH – Trove https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2562392
[6] Papers Past | Newspapers | Northern Advocate | 27 June 1942 … https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19420627.2.30
[7] Alamein Memorial | Cemetery Details | CWGC https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/131900/alamein-memorial/
[8] Armed Forces Covenant & War Memorial | Swavesey Parish Council https://www.swavesey-pc.gov.uk/community/armed-forces-covenant/
[9] NARA – AAD – Fielded Search – World War II Prisoners of War … https://aad.archives.gov/aad/fielded-search.jsp?dt=3159&tf=F&sl
[10] The Royal Canadian Army Service Corps – Juno Beach Centre https://www.junobeach.org/canada-in-wwii/articles/supplying-canadas-field-army-overseas/the-royal-canadian-army-service-corps/
[11] [PDF] research guide-North Africa.indd – King’s College London https://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/assets/archives/northafrica.pdf
[12] How to search British and international Prisoner of War … https://www.findmypast.co.uk/guides/find-pow-records
[13] Roll of Honour – Cambridgeshire – Swavesey St Andrew https://www.roll-of-honour.com/Cambridgeshire/SwaveseyStAndrew.html
[14] Driver Lewis Richard Frank Jenner (1920-1942) – Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14702958/lewis-richard_frank-jenner
[15] Memorial – St Andrew’s Church, Swavesey https://www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk/memorial/158316/
[16] Roll of Honour – Cambridgeshire – Swavesey War Memorial Hall https://www.roll-of-honour.com/Cambridgeshire/Swavesey.html
[17] Regiments That Served With The 7th Armoured Division – Desert Rats http://www.desertrats.org.uk/orgothers.htm
[18] Lewis Richard Frank Jenner – Timenote https://timenote.info/en/Lewis-Richard-Frank-Jenner
[19] Lewis Richard Frank Jenner, b.1920 d.1942 – Ancestry® https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/lewis-richard-frank-jenner-24-n4jl4q
[20] El Alamein War Cemetery – Commonwealth War Graves Commission https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/2019000/el-alamein-war-cemetery/
[21] [PDF] 1. Why are there war graves and memorials at El Alamein? https://www.cwgc.org/media/jqublbqy/egypt-alamein-school-visit-resource-en-2025.pdf
[22] Five African War Cemeteries & Memorials to Know | CWGC https://www.cwgc.org/our-work/blog/five-african-war-cemeteries-memorials-to-know/
[23] CWGC marks 75th anniversary of the Battle of El Alamein https://www.cwgc.org/our-work/news/cwgc-marks-75th-anniversary-of-the-battle-of-el-alamein/
[24] 27 Jun 1942 – ENEMY 30 MILES FROM MERSA MATRUH MAIN FORCES … https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11983100
[25] Alamein Memorial – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamein_Memorial
[26] Adam Wakenshaw – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Wakenshaw
[27] Obituaries & Death Records (1690-Today) – Search 346M … https://www.genealogybank.com/explore/all-obits
[28] Forces War Records – Historical military records https://ca.forceswarrecords.com/
[29] Service Records – The Military Museums https://themilitarymuseums.ca/learn/service-records
[30] taken pow at mersa matruh 15 june 1942 | WW2Talk https://www.ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/taken-pow-at-mersa-matruh-15-june-1942.29772/
[31] Guards – Egypt Cemeteries list | WW2Talk https://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/guards-egypt-cemeteries-list.32227/