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