Lewis Alfred Allan Blakeney Carr (1894 - 1942)

Born 1894 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Ancestors

Died 1 Jul 1942 at about age 48 in At Sea

Biography

Lewis Carr was a Prisoner of War during World War II.

Lewis Carr died as a prisoner of war on the Montevideo Maru during the Second World War.

Lewis was born in 1894 in Fitzroy, Victoria, the youngest son of Alfred Blakeney Carr, a bank manager with the Bank of NSW, and his wife Jane, nee May. No Birth registration has been identified for Lewis, although the births of several siblings are registered in Victoria.

Lewis enlisted in the AIF during WW1 on 10 May 1915 in Melbourne. He was a clerk at the time. He was 5 ft 6 &5/8 in tall, with fair complexion, blue eyes and fair hair. He was allocated to the 6th Field Ambulance as a Private (No 3240). He embarked from Australia on the HMAT A31 "Ajana" on 04 Jun 1915, arriving at Gallipoli on 30 Aug 1915. He was at Gallipoli when he was admitted to hospital with influenza on 13 Oct 1915, and he was discharged to duty at Mudros on 30 Oct. He later had enteric fever and was admitted to hospital in Gibraltar from the Hospital Ship "Somalia" and then contracted appendicitis and was operated on. He was invalided to England on 29 Dec 1915 on the "Transylvania".

He departed England on 24 Jun 1916 to return to Australia on the "Euripides", disembarking in Melbourne on 08 Aug 1916 and was assigned to 3rd Military District Nursing Staff. He was discharged as permanently unfit for service on 13 Oct 1916.

Lewis began working in the New Guinea Territory around 1931. He was at Kolube Plantation, Kavieng in 1934. He was later the road manager in the Territory administration in Rabaul.

He married Marjorie Eleanor Cameron in Rabaul on 22 Jul 1939.^[1] There were no children.

It appears he enlisted in the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles as a Rifleman (NG4004), shortly before the Japanese invasion, but was not serving at the time of the invasion. When the Japanese invaded in Jan 1942, he was captured at Kokopo, near Rabaul with other civilians and was interned as a civilian prisoner. He died on board the "Montevideo Maru" when it was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of the Philippines on 01 Jul 1942.

Sources

1. ↑ Marriage notice - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17633194

• WW1 AIF Service record - National Archives of Australia - Carr Lewis Allan Alfred Blakeney : SERN 3240 : POB Fitzroy VIC : POE Melbourne VIC : NOK F Carr Alfred Blakeney - http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/AutoSearch.asp?O=I&Number=3207806

• CARR LEWIS ALFRED ALLEN : Service Number - NG4004 : Date of birth - Unknown : Place of birth - Unknown : Place of enlistment - Unknown : Next of Kin - CARR MARJORIE - http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/AutoSearch.asp?O=I&Number=6195255

• Death Form - National Archives of Australia - Defence - General - Information of deaths for persons lost on the MONTEVIDEO MARU - https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=102239&S=35

• Commonwealth War Graves Commission - https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/3173240/lewis-alfred-allan-carr/

• Lewis Alfred Allan Carr (The Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial, https://www.powmemorialballarat.com.au/ : accessed 16 Mar 2024)