LEWIS, Frederick Albert

  1. Service Details
  2. Personal Details
  3. Unit and Rank Details
  4. Fate
  5. Commemoration
  6. Notes
  7. Sources

Service Details

Branch of Service
Army
Conflict
World War II (1939-1945)
Date of Enlistment
05/08/1941
Place of Enlistment
Paddington NSW

Personal Details

Gender
Male
Date of Birth
26/12/1921
Place of Birth
Queanbeyan NSW
Address (at enlistment)
Ovens Street, Griffith ACT
School(s) Attended
Telopea Park Primary School (1930-32); Telopea Park Intermediate High School [original Canberra High School] (1933-36).
Occupation
Commonwealth public servant, Patents Office, Canberra ACT.
Next of Kin
Son of Philip Joseph Lewis, labourer, and Olive May Lewis, of Ovens Street, Griffith, Canberra ACT.
Burial Place

Body never recovered.

Unit and Rank Details

Service Number
NX41922
Final Rank
Signalman
Final Unit
8 Division Corps of Signals AIF

Fate

Died 24 March 1945 aged 23 years, Sandakan, Borneo.

Commemoration

Labuan Memorial, Malaysia: Panel 8.
AWM Roll of Honour, Canberra ACT: Panel 27.
Canberra High School Memorial Tablet
St John the Baptist Anglican Church, Reid, Book of Remembrance of Canberra parishioners who died in the war of 1939-45, in recess in south wall of nave.

Notes

Lewis became a POW at Changi after the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942. On 8 July 1942 he was taken by the Japanese to Sandakan in Borneo (as part of 'B' Force) where prisoners of war were to build an airstrip. In 1945 the Australian and British prisoners were forced to march to Ranau - the Sandakan 'death march'. Those who were too weak to start the march were left behind at Sandakan. Lewis died at Sandakan, Borneo on 24 March 1945 from malaria (according to the Japanese). His body was not recovered.

Lewis is remembered on the Labuan Memorial. The Labuan Memorial stands in Labuan War Cemetery which is on the small island of Labuan (part of Sabah, Malaysia) in Brunei Bay, off the coast of north-west Borneo. It was primarily intended to commemorate the officers and men of the Australian Army and Air Force who died while prisoners of war in Borneo and the Philippines from 1942 to 1945 and during the 1945 operations for the recovery of Borneo, and have no known grave.

Sources

Australia. Department of Veterans' Affairs. World War 2 nominal roll. <http://www.ww2roll.gov.au/>
Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Debt of Honour Register. <http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/search/>
AWM Roll of Honour and Roll of Honour Circulars <http://www.awm.gov.au/database/roh.asp>
AWM Collections Record: P02467.438
Canberra High School. Roll of Honour 1939-1945. [Plaque in school]
Canberra High School. Albums compiled for student project researching names on School Roll of Honour, 1985.
Canberra High School. Unveiling of Memorial Tablet. Friday, 25th April 1947. [Programme]
Don Mountain ed. Monumental inscriptions: Australian Capital Territory, including Jervis Bay. Canberra, Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra, 2001 (p.41)
Miriam Nauenberg, 'Index to Telopea Park Primary School: Register of admissions 1923-1946', Typescript compiled for the Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra.
Telopea Park Primary School: Register of admissions 1923-1946. Volume (a): Boys. Photocopy MS held by Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra.
Lynette Ramsay Silver, 'Sandakan: A Conspiracy of Silence', 1998
NAA RecordSearch
ACT Electoral Roll - 1941
The Canberra Times - 5 August 1942, 9 April 1943, 2 November 1945

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LEWIS, Frederick Albert

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