Jack Sumner was born in Leyland on 20 March 1917. His father was John Sumner (b. 1885 in Preston), a printing machine fitter. His mother was Annie Turner (b. 1889 in Preston). John and Annie were married in 1909 and they had five children: Peggy (b. 1910), Arthur (b. 1912, died the same year), Mona (b. 1915), then Jack and finally Walter (b. 1919).

In the spring of 1939, Jack married Hilda Whittingham (b. 1917, possibly in Preston). It looks like Jack and Hilda were living in Preston at the time of the census in September 1939, though later Hilda was recorded as living in Farington, but I don’t know the circumstances. Before the War, Jack was a joiner.

He enlisted with the Royal Armoured Corps and served with the 17th/21st Lancers. On 12 October 1940, they joined the 26th Armoured Brigade, and on 9 November 1940, the brigade became part of the newly raised 6th Armoured Division, with which it served for the rest of the war. In November 1942, the division was deployed to Tunisia for Operation Torch.  The campaign began on 8 November 1942, when Commonwealth and American troops made a series of landings in Algeria and Morocco. The Germans responded immediately by sending a force from Sicily to northern Tunisia, which checked the Allied advance east in early December. In the south, the Axis forces after their defeat at El Alamein withdrew into Tunisia along the coast through Libya, pursued by the Allied Eighth Army. By mid April 1943, the combined Axis force was hemmed into a small corner of north-eastern Tunisia and the Allies were grouped for their final offensive.