An early 20th century photograph album, understood to have b...

Hammer

£400

An early 20th century photograph album, understood to have been collected and amassed by John Hodges, 1913 onwards, including military camps and related subjects, including Baghdad, Babylon, Advance to Kirkuk, India, Ceylon, Hong Kong, Special Siberian Regiment, Ekaterinburg, Admiral Kolchak's Visit at Omsk, Korea, and Vladivostok Port, a silver plated table cigarette box, with facsimile signatures, the cover inscribed 'Presented to Colonel A P Hodges MC TD, Chief of Allied Liaison and Protocol ACA (March 4 1947-June 30 1950) by the Heads of The Allied Military Missions and Chiefs of the National Elements of Allied Liaison and Protocol, Berlin, Germany', 26 cm wide, a group of Allied Control Authority Identity Cards, and a Free France embroidered panel, with two photographs, understood to be the Fayou family who lived in Quimper, with the two girls who joined the French Resistance and were awarded the Legion d'Honneur for the part they played
Provenance: Descent through the family

More Information

Note: John Hodges was an American citizen, who was sent by his father to Sherborne School for his education. At some point he adopted British nationality, he enlisted in the Army and saw service on the Western Front and Gallipoli, being awarded the Military Cross, subsequently he served in the Middle East, as shown in the photographs, at the end of WWI he volunteered to join a British Military Mission to support the so-called White Russians, and accordingly sailed to Vladivostok, and took the train to Nikolaevsk, having been posted as an artillery instructor to the 11th and 13th Siberian Divisions, from there he was ordered to go to Omsk, the Headquarters of the Orenburg Cossack Army, at that point they were cut off by the encircling Red Army, they decided to retreat Peking, this involved crossing the Kirghiz Steppe and the Gobi Desert, altogether a journey of three thousand miles, he wrote a book about his adventures, which was called Britmis. After the war he was posted to the Lebanon. His final posting was to Berlin, where he was chief liaison officer to the Military Missions who controlled the city and was presented with this silver plated box (although this is to A P Hodges) on his retirement