The arrival of war in September 1939 brought a halt to Jensen’s plans to expand production of its passenger cars and the newly developed lightweight truck. Like most industrial concerns in England, Jensen was assigned defence contracts to build parts of larger assemblies or, in Jensen’s case, complete motor vehicles. The provision of fire tenders was an essential industry and Jensen is believed to have built hundreds of these to Home Office specifications. It was well placed to do so, having built specialized tenders for local councils before the war (a Fordson-based tender is pictured). In addition to fire trucks, Jensen built a wide range of items for the military including wading equipment for tanks, bomb casings, aircraft seat frames, trailers of varying types, mustard gas containers, anti-frost devices, ammunition boxes, cable-laying equipment, line throwing launchers, gun turrets for bombers and many smaller items. The industrial heartland of England and its major cities of Birmingham and Coventry were prime targets for the Luftwaffe and an incendiary air raid in November 1940 damaged the Jensen works, destroying the stores and office block and, unfortunately, most of the records relating to the production of cars and commercial vehicles. No Jensen-built war contract vehicles are known to survive.