Jock Lewes

Lieutenant John Steel "Jock" Lewes (21 December 1913 – 30 December 1941) was a British Army officer prominent during the Second World War. He was the founding principal training officer of the Special Air Service.[1] Its founding commander, David Stirling, said later of Lewes, "Jock could far more genuinely claim to be founder of the SAS than I."[2] Lewes also invented an explosive device for use by the SAS, the eponymous Lewes bomb.

Jock Lewes
Birth nameJohn Steel Lewes
Nickname(s)Jock
Born(1913-12-21)21 December 1913
Calcutta, Bengal, British India
Died30 December 1941(1941-12-30) (aged 28)
El Gaus, Cyrenaica, Italian Libya
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service/branchBritish Army
Years of service1935–1941
RankLieutenant
Service number65419
UnitRifle Brigade
Welsh Guards
L Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade
Battles/warsSecond World War
MemorialsAlamein Memorial

Early life, family and education
Lieutenant Jock Lewes, co-founder of the SAS, 1940 – a portrait painted by Rex Whistler (at the time a fellow officer in the Welsh Guards).

Lewes was born in Calcutta to a British father, chartered accountant Arthur Harold Lewes, and an Australian mother, Elsie Steel Lewes. The family moved to Australia and Lewes grew up at Bowral, New South Wales.[3] As a teenager he attended The King's School, Parramatta.[1]

Lewes travelled to the United Kingdom to attend Christ Church, Oxford, from September 1933, where he read philosophy, politics and economics. In 1936–37, he was president of the Oxford University Boat Club. During 1937 he voluntarily gave up his place in the Oxford Blue boat crew, to assist it in winning that year's University Boat Race,[4] and ending a 15-year winning streak by Cambridge.[5][6] Lewes travelled to Berlin to work for the British Council and,[1] before the events of Kristallnacht, was briefly an admirer of Hitler and the Nazi state.[7]

A younger brother, David Steel Lewes, was later prominent as a cardiologist in the United Kingdom and was a Royal Air Force medical officer during the war.[8]

At the time of his death, Lewes was engaged to marry Mirren Barford, an Oxford undergraduate. Their love letters were collected and published by Barford's son in 1995 and revealed their Nazi sympathies.[9]

He was depicted by Alfie Allen in the 2022 television historical drama SAS: Rogue Heroes.[10]

Military career

Lewes was first commissioned to the British Army's General List as a university candidate on 5 July 1935, while a student at Oxford.[11] At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was briefly transferred to a Territorial Army unit, the 1st Battalion, Tower Hamlets Rifles, Rifle Brigade on 2 September 1939 before joining the Welsh Guards on 28 October.[12]

In 1941, Lewes was in a group of volunteers assembled by David Stirling to form a unit dedicated to raiding missions against the lines of communication of Axis forces in North Africa. For military deception and counterespionage purposes, this platoon-sized group was at first officially known as "L" Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade.[13]

To destroy Axis vehicles, members of the SAS surreptitiously attached small explosive charges. Lewes noticed the respective weaknesses of conventional blast and incendiaries, as well as their failure to destroy vehicles in some cases. He improvised a new, combined charge out of plastic explosive, diesel and thermite. The Lewes bomb was used throughout the Second World War.[5]

In late December 1941, Lewes was involved in an SAS/Long Range Desert Group raid on Axis airfields in Libya. As the raiders returned to Allied lines, their vehicles were repeatedly attacked by Italian and German aircraft. While returning fire on 30 December, near "Marble Arch" (El Gaus; Arco dei Fileni),[14] Lewes was reportedly hit in the thigh by a 20 mm cannon round and died at the scene of the attack.[15] He is commemorated on the Alamein Memorial.[6]

Notes
  1. Army News [Australia], 11 January 1945, p3.
  2. Lewes, John (15 March 2001). Jock Lewes: Co-Founder of the SAS. Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books. ISBN 9781844156153.
  3. The Southern Mail (Bowral), 19 January 1945, p. 1.
  4. The Southern Mail (Bowral), 4 May 1937, p. 2.
  5. McPherson, Fiona (2004). "Lewes, John Steel (1913–1941)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/74291. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  6. "Commonwealth War Graves Commission – casualty details, John Steel Lewes". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 21 February 2008.
  7. Hill, Amelia (23 July 2000). "SAS founder was a Nazi sympathiser". The Observer. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  8. Royal College of Physicians, 2019, David Steel Lewes (31 March 2020).
  9. Sophie Evans (6 February 2017). "SAS founder was 'dazzled' by Third Reich and even fell in love with NAZI socialite in run-up to WW2". The Daily Mirror. Retrieved 11 November 2022.
    - Mirren Barford. Joy Street: A Wartime Romance in Letters. ISBN 978-0316911351.
  10. Nicholson, Rebecca (30 October 2022). "SAS: Rogue Heroes review – is the follow up to Peaky Blinders fun? Does Arthur Shelby like a drink?". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  11. "No. 34177". The London Gazette. 5 July 1935. p. 4345.
  12. "No. 34685". The London Gazette (Supplement). 15 September 1939. p. 6338.
    - "No. 34719". The London Gazette (Supplement). 27 October 1939. p. 7254.
  13. Macintyre, Ben (2016). Rogue Warriors. New York: Crown Publishing Group. pp. 25–28. ISBN 978-1-101-90416-9.
  14. Tim Jones. SAS Zero Hour: The Secret Origins of the Special Air Service. Barnsley, S. Yorks.: Pen & Sword Books. p. 204.
  15. "Family of SAS pioneer to travel to Libya to find soldier's grave". The Telegraph. 4 December 2011. Retrieved 21 November 2022.

References
  • Cowles, Virginia. The Phantom Major.
  • Wise, Michael, ed. Joy Street: A Wartime Romance in Letters.
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