Val ffrench Blake

Robert Lifford Valentine ffrench Blake (3 March 1913 – 11 March 2011) was a lieutenant-colonel in the British Army, cattle and horse breeder, and author. Biography Early life Robert Lifford Valentine ffrench Blake was born on 3 March 1913 in Rawalpindi, India. He was a descendant of the Tribes of Galway. His father was Major St. John Lucius O'Brien Acheson ffrench Blake (1889–1917), who was killed at the First Battle of Gaza, and his mother, Doris Kathleen Tweedie. He went to Eton College, a boarding-school in Eton, Berkshire, where he was an Oppidan Scholar, and graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Military career During the Second World War, he served with the 17th/21st Lancers in India and North Africa. However, after he was shot in the neck and arms by a sniper in November 1942, he was sent back to England to heal. He then worked at RAC Tactical School in Oxford and studied at the Staff College, Camberley. At the age of thirty-two, he was appointed assistant adjutant and quartermaster general (AA&QMG) to the 6th Armoured Division. He was then posted to the newly established Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he served as Chief Instructor of Old College and co-wrote the Military Syllabus for an 18-month course. Meanwhile, he became a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order in 1945. However, in 1949, he retired from the British Army as Lieutenant-Colonel.