Jack Elkis was the son of William Elkis and Elizabeth Ann Elkis of Sydenham, Canterbury.

Sergeant Elkis was killed in an unexpected action at Cazzano on the Idice River. The 18 Battalion was moving along with relative ease when 'a sudden fight flared up at Cazzano, another of those tiny villages where a knot of roads comes together. Here Jerry had planted a little rearguard - as it turned out later, one Tiger tank, one Panther and one self-propelled gun - to hold us up for the precious few hours that would let his main force slip away. Nos. 7 and 8 Troops ran head-on into this ambush, carefully camouflaged in the farms round Cazzano. Suddenly the joyride turned to tragedy. Within ten minutes Sergeant Jack Elkis and Corporals Warren and Walmsley were dead, six others wounded, and four Shermans knocked out, one of them in flames.' (History of 18 Armoured Regiment by W.D. Dawson, p. 630) AWMM