Rough Riders

Frank and Percy Talley, Troopers 2365 and 2366, of the 1st City of London Yeomanry (Rough Riders), were destined to leave England to take part in the last, and most costly, single-day battle of the Gallipoli Campaign, on August 21, 1915. In 200-plus never-before-published letters, the Talley brothers describe their training in England, their move to the East coast to man the trenches there during the invasion scare of 1914, and the zeppelin attack at Great Yarmouth. They describe the activities of the Rough Riders in preparing for war, of their transportation to Egypt and Suez, and of their expectation that they would be used in action at Gallipoli. After walking into a maelstrom of fire on August 21, 1915, the trooper-brothers were separated, and each wrote home not knowing whether the other had survived. Both were wounded. Their letters from the Suvla trenches are brief but telling—flies, snipers, the stench of the dead.