Lieutenant Colonel A O'B ffrench Blake TD DL

Ts transcription (379pp in two volumes) of extracts from letters written home during his service as a Squadron Commander with the Royal East Kent Yeomanry (South East Mounted Brigade) at Gallipoli (October - December 1915), where he describes his landing on 8 October at W Beach, Cape Helles, the various illnesses suffered by his men including diarrhoea, rheumatism and jaundice, the restricted variety and quality of food, and living conditions on the Peninsula and its variable climate; then in Egypt and Palestine (January 1916 - January 1919) where his unit was amalgamated in February 1917 into the 10th Battalion The Buffs (East Kent Regiment) (230th Brigade, 74th Division) of which he took command, before being transferred in April 1918 to command the 2/5th Battalion Hampshire Regiment and in August the 1/4th Battalion Wiltshire Regiment (232nd Brigade, 75th Division), referring to the novelty of learning morse code, living conditions in the desert, the importance he attaches to receiving mail from his wife, and the descriptions he has read of Armistice celebrations in London, while paying tribute to the men of his regiments and the Division.

• <persname>Ffrench-Blake, Arthur O'b, d 1994, Lieutenant Colonel</persname>
• <persname>Blake, Arthur, Ffrench-, d 1994, Lieutenant Colonel</persname>

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