Lieutenant Colonel G H Cooke OBE

Extensive personal papers (5 boxes), such as newspapers, cuttings, official reports and documents, photographs, 11 diaries (1914 - October 1918 and 1940 - 1945), 195 letters to his mother (July 1914 - October 1918) and other correspondence, relating to his service in East Africa, India, and Palestine, September 1914 - March 1919, and in the Middle East, May 1940 - July 1945, including: active service with the Volunteer Maxim Gun Company in India, September 1914 - October 1914, and East Africa, October 1914 - September 1915; the 2nd Kashmir Rifles in East Africa, October 1915 - June 1917; the 3rd Kashmir Rifles in Kashmir, India, June 1917 - July 1918, and with the EEF in Palestine, October 1918 - March 1919; as Administrative Director of Transport Supply (Petrol) in the Middle East in Cairo, Egypt, May 1940 - July 1945, co-ordinating petrol and oil supplies to Allied and British Forces in North Africa and the Middle East. Also included is material relating to his brother, E R Cooke, who served with the 8th Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers on the Western front and was killed in action in France and Belgium, April 1916, notably 39 letters to his family (October 1914 - April 1916), and the form of service for the funeral of Lord Moyne, Minister Resident in the Middle East, held in Cairo Cathedral, November 1944.

Unrestricted

Gerald Cooke was born in either 1891 or 1892 and educated at Queen's College, Taunton. He went to India in 1911 as an employee of Shaw, Wallace and Co. of Bombay and on 16 September 1914 joined the Volunteer Maxim Gun Company who were in action in East Africa by October. He was promoted to Lance Corporal on 12 June 1915. On 1 October 1915 he was transfered to the 2nd Kashmir Rifles as a 2nd Lieutenant. In June 1917 he joined the 3rd Kashmir Rifles and returned to India, serving in the Kashmir until July 1918. After a spell of leave in England, he joined the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in October 1918 serving until his retirement in early 1919.

In May 1940 Cooke was appointed Administrative Director of Transport Supply (Petrol), Middle East, by the War Office, after retiring after ten years' service as manager in Bombay for Burmah Shell. The Petrol Branch had responsibility over Egypt (including the Western Desert as far as the borders of Libya), Palestine and Transjorden, Cyprus, Sudan, British Somaliland and Aden. In April 1943 he was seconded to the Office of the Minister of State, Middle East.