Walter Birnley Kemeys-Jenkin

This story is shared by the Trust with kind permission from John Hamblin, Researcher.

Walter Birnley Kemeys-Jenkin, Lieutenant 126521, 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment. Killed in action on the 14th of August 1944, aged 29.

Walter Brynley Kemeys-Jenkin was born in India on the 2nd of April 1915, the younger son of Captain Ernest Edward Kemeys-Jenkin FRIBA, an architect and engineer, and Edith Mary Kemeys-Jenkin of “Glan Mor”, Maer Road, Exmouth in Devon.

He was educated at St Peter’s School, Lympstone from September 1925 to April 1929 and at Blundell’s School where he was in Petergate House from May 1929 to Easter 1932. He was a member of the Junior House Rugby XV in 1931 and of the Senior House Rugby XV in 1932. He was awarded House Colours in 1931 and appeared in the play “St Joan” in 1932.

He served as a member of the Officer Training Corps and was a member the Cadet Pair in 1930 and 1931 and a member of the Band in 1931 and attended the OTC Summer Camp in the same year. He matriculated for Merton College, Oxford in 1933 where he read English.

He was married at Woodbury, Devon in May 1940 to Kathleen Betty Quiller Kemeys-Jenkin (née Angear); they had a daughter, Diana Mary, born in 1943 and a son, John, born on the 4th of January 1945.

Following the outbreak of war he attended an Officer Cadet Training Unit before being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Devonshire Regiment on the 23rd of March 1940. He was promoted to Lieutenant on the 23rd of September 1941. He was posted to the 2nd Battalion of his Regiment and joined them on the 3rd of August 1943. He was promoted to temporary Captain on the 29th of October 1943.

At 10.30am, on the 31st of May 1944, the 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment left Pennerley Camp, near Beaulieu for Southampton. When they arrived there they embarked on board the LCI Glenroy and set sail that afternoon for Southampton Waters to await the start of the Allied invasion of France. They set sail for Normandy at 7pm on the evening of the 5th of June and dropped anchor off the coast of Le Hamel at 5.15am the next morning.

The troops then boarded Landing Craft Assault craft and began their run-in to the beaches at 7.05am. A and B Companies were the first to land on the beaches to the west of Le Hamel at 8.10am with the remaining Companies landing ten minutes later. The Battalion began to move inland at 9.15am.

During the early morning of the 11th of August 1944, the Battalion moved to an assembly area just to the north of Cauville from where they were to travel in lorries to attack the high ground just to the south of Les Forges. A preparatory artillery barrage began at 8am and the Battalion began their advance. They took their first objective but were unable to move forward again until 4pm and by 9pm they had taken their second objective, having suffered casualties of nine men killed with twenty eight wounded.

The next morning they continued their advance during which they encountered disorganised resistance and captured a few prisoners. They arrived at their objective at 8.53am near to the village of Condé-sur-Noireau where they dug in. At 10pm that night they came under heavy machine gun fire from a wood to their front and the men “stood to” in anticipation of an enemy counter-attack but this did not materialize.

At 4am the 13th of August they were in the same positions when their supporting artillery began shelling the woods to their front. They remained there throughout the day under retaliatory enemy artillery and mortar fire. On the afternoon of the 14th of August 1944, the decision was made to make an attack to clear the woods of the enemy. C Company was to attack on the left of the woods and D Company on the right with supporting artillery fire starting at 7.45pm. When the attack began forward progress was slow but C Company took seventeen prisoners before darkness brought the fighting to a close. Walter Kemeys-Jenkin was shot and killed by a sniper during the operation while leading a two man patrol. The next day the Battalion successfully cleared the woods with D Company taking a further thirteen enemy prisoners.

Walter Kemeys-Jones is buried at Tilly-sur-Seulles War Cemetery, Plot IX, Row B, Grave 7. He is commemorated on the war memorial at Exmouth, on the memorial at Blundell’s School and on the memorial at Merton College, Oxford. In 1946 his father donated £100 to Blundell’s School to create the Kemeys-Jenkin Prize for 6th Form English Literature.