Eagles Over the Western Front part 5

(* Eagles Over The Western Front © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

Eagles Over the Western Front part 4

(* Eagles Over The Western Front © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

Available now

Eagles Over the Western Front part 3

(* Eagles Over The Western Front © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

Eagles Over the Western Front part 2

(* Eagles Over The Western Front © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

Eagles Over the Western Front part 1

Way back on 20 April 2009, I ran the first two episodes of "Eagles Over the Western Front". This was a first for Bear Alley as it was the first lengthy comic strip we ran on the website.

"Eagles Over The Western Front" was a long-running First World War strip that appeared in Look and Learn between July 1971 and October 1973. The first few episodes were single pages but the strip quickly proved its popularity and switched to two pages per episode. Its run on Bear Alley was also popular and, when it came to producing our first comic book reprint, "Eagles" was a natural choice. We reprinted it in three volumes in May, June and July 2011. And I'd love to see the strip reach a wider audience, so for those of you who have never seen it – and as part of our 2nd birthday celebrations – here is the debut story featuring Harry Hawkes as he attempts to join the Royal Flying Corps. I hope those of you with your own websites, blogs of Facebook pages will pop in a link to this page and to the page over on Bear Alley Books where you can buy all three volumes together.

The artwork throughout was by the great Bill Lacey and I think you'll enjoy the way it unfolds as a story over the next few days.

(* Eagles Over The Western Front © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)

Buy Eagles Over the Western Front

If you haven't spotted it before, there is an option for buying all three volumes of Eagles Over the Western Front together. For those of you that have yet to purchase any of the books, this might be your best option as it will save you a couple of quid off the price of postage and packing.

Andrew Martin cover gallery

Born in York on 6 July 1962, Andrew Martin was educated at Merton College, Oxford, and comes from a long and respectable line of authors who qualified as a barrister. He began freelancing as a journalist and his first novel was a comic novel about journalism entitled Bilton. His second novel, The Bobby Dazzlers, earned him the title of Young Writer of the Year from The Spectator. He has written for The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, the Independent on Sunday and Granta amongst other magazines.

The Evening Standard praised his first Jim Stringer novel, saying "The age of steam has rarely been better evoked." Murder at Deviation Junction was shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award and, in 2008, he was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library Award.

He has also written a book on housework for men entitled How to Get Things Really Flat: A Man's Guide to Ironing, Dusting and Other Household Arts (2008) and a look at British ghosts, Ghoul Britannia: Notes on a Haunted Isle (2009).

The cover gallery covers only Martin's Jim Stringer novels.

The Necropolis Railway (London, Faber & Faber, 2002)
Faber & Faber 0571-20991-2, 2003, 231pp, £6.99. Cover by Brian Lancaster/design Tim Byrne
When railwayman Jim Stringer moves to the garish and tawdry London of 1903, he finds his duties are confined to a mysterious graveyard line. Perplexingly, the men he works alongside have formed an instant loathing for him. And his predecessor has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Can Jim work out what is going on before he too is travelling on a one-way coffin ticket aboard the Necropolis Railway? A gripping detective story, fabulously rich in atmosphere and period detail, The Necropolis Railway steams toward an unexpected conclusion.

The Blackpool Highflyer (London, Faber & Faber, 2004)
Faber & Faber 0571-21902-0, 2005, 336pp, £7.99. Cover design Two Associates
A superbly atmospheric thriller of sabotage, suspicion and steam, "The Blackpool Highflyer" brings a new twist to tales of Edwardian England, steam railways and amateur sleuthing. When railwayman Jim Stringer is assigned to drive holiday makers to the seaside resort of Blackpool in the hot summer of 1905, he thinks he's struck lucky. But his dreams of beer and pretty women are soon destroyed - when his high-speed train meets a huge millstone on the line. Who wanted to derail the packed train? And did they want to kill everyone on board, or just one passenger? Desperately seeking the saboteur, Jim is drawn into the fringes of Blackpool Central, Europe's busiest station. He discovers a murky world of dandies, fraudsters and ventriloquists, shifty revolutionaries and textile magnates. In the summer heat, dazed by the sun and by the roaring fire he stokes, Jim begins to understand that the more he investigates, the longer his list of suspects will become...

The Lost Luggage Porter (London, Faber & Faber, 2006)
Faber & Faber 0571-21904-9, 2007, 320pp, £7.99. Cover design by Two Associates
In York, Winter, 1906 - two brothers have been shot to death. Meanwhile, Jim Stringer meets the Lost Luggage Porter, humblest among the employees of the North Eastern Railway company. He tells Jim a tale which leads him to the roughest part of town, a place where the police constables always walk in twos. Jim is off on the trail of pickpockets, 'station loungers' and other small fry of the York underworld. But then, in a tiny, one-room pub with a badly smoking fire, he enters the orbit of a dangerous, disturbed villain who is playing for much higher stakes...

Murder at Deviation Junction (London, Faber & Faber, 2007)
Faber & Faber 0571-22966-6, 2008, 249pp, £7.99. Cover design by Faber
A train hits a snow drift in the frozen Cleveland Hills. In the process of clearing the line a body is discovered, and so begins a dangerous case for struggling Edwardian railway detective, Jim Stringer. Jim's new investigation takes him to the mighty blast furnaces of Ironopolis, to Fleet Street in the company of a cynical reporter from The Railway Rover, and to a nightmarish spot in the Highlands. Jim's faltering career in the railway police hangs on whether he can solve the murder - but before long the pursuer becomes the pursued, and Jim finds himself fighting not just for his job, but for his very life as well.

Death on a Branch Line (London, Faber & Faber, 2008)
Faber & Faber 0571-22968-0, 2009, 262pp, £7.99. Cover design by Two Associates
It's the sweltering summer of 1911, and one Friday evening a young aristocrat arrives into the custody of detective Jim Stringer, a man recently found guilty of murdering his father in the sleepy village of Adenwold. He warns Jim of another murder likely to happen in the same village - that of his brother, a reclusive intellectual. When Jim and his wife Lydia arrive at Adenwold they encounter a host of likely suspects and the intended victim, and suddenly Jim has one weekend in which to stop a murder and unravel a conspiracy of international dimensions...

The Last Train to Scarborough (London, Faber & Faber, 2009)
Faber & Faber 0571-22970-3, 2010, 314pp, £7.99. Cover design by Two Associates
One night, in a private boarding house in Scarborough, a railwayman vanishes, leaving his belongings behind...It is the eve of the Great War, and Jim Stringer, railway detective, is uneasy about his next assignment. It's not so much the prospect Scarborough in the gloomy off-season that bothers him, or even the fact that the last railwayman to stay in the house has disappeared without trace. It's more that his governer, Chief Inspector Saul Weatherhill, seems to be deliberately holding back details of the case - and that he's been sent to Scarborough with a trigger-happy assistant. And when Jim encounters the seductive and beautiful Amanda Rickerby a whole new personal danger enters Jim's life...

The Somme Stations (London, Faber & Faber, 2011)
Faber & Faber 0571-24964-0, 2012, 287pp, £7.99. Cover design by Faber
On the first day of the Somme enlisted railwayman Jim Stringer lies trapped in a shell hole, smoking cigarette after cigarette under the bullets and the blazing sun. He calculates his chances of survival - even before they departed for France, a member of Jim's unit had been found dead. During the stand-off that follows, Jim and his comrades must operate by night the vitally important trains carrying munitions to the Front, through a ghostly landscape of shattered trees where high explosive and shrapnel shells rain down. Close co-operation and trust are vital. Yet proof piles up of an enemy within, and as a ferocious military policeman pursues his investigation into the original killing, the finger of accusation begins to point towards Jim himself...

The Baghdad Railway Club (London, Faber & Faber, 2012)
Faber & Faber 978-0571-24965-7, 2013, 304pp, £7.99.
Baghdad 1917. Captain Jim Stringer, invalided from the Western Front, has been dispatched to investigate what looks like a nasty case of treason. He arrives to find a city on the point of insurrection, his cover apparently blown - and his only contact lying dead with flies in his eyes. As Baghdad swelters in a particularly torrid summer, the heat alone threatens the lives of the British soldiers who occupy the city. The recently ejected Turks are still a danger - and many of the local Arabs are none too friendly either. For Jim, who is not particularly good in warm weather, the situation grows pricklier by the day. Aside from his investigation, he is working on the railways around the city. His boss is the charming, enigmatic Lieutenant-Colonel Shepherd, who presides over the gracious dining society called "The Baghdad Railway Club" - and who may or may not be a Turkish agent. Jim's search for the truth brings him up against murderous violence in a heat-dazed, labyrinthine city where an enemy awaits around every corner.

Night Train to Jamalpur (London, Faber & Faber, 2013)
Faber & Faber 978-0571-28410-8, 2014, 330pp, £7.99. Cover design by Faber
India 1923. Captain Jim Stringer is on secondment to the East Indian Railway. Travelling on the Night Mail from Calcutta to Janalpur, a rich Anglo-Indian is shot dead in the sleeping compartment next to Jim's. Was it a robbery gone wrong, or was Jim the actual target?
    Apart from the Jamalpur shooting, someone is placing venomous snakes in the First Class compartments of the railway, drawing Jim into the thriving snake trade of Calcutta in hopes of finding a lead. Meanwhile, his daughter has formed a connection with a Maharajah's son, and Jim detects danger to his family from all sides in the manic social whirl of a dying empire...

Anton Lind

Another ghost writer who trod the sandy trails of the foreign legion was Anton Lind. Nothing is known about Lind – he earns himself an entry in Men Behind Boys' Fiction and The Encyclopedia of Boys' School Stories, where each entry admits defeat.

Lind's earliest known books relate to the foreign legion. One is a collaboration with Ex-Légionnaire 1384, whom we have covered previously. Legion of the Lost was advertised as "A truly astonishing account of the author's experiences in the Central Espionage Organisation of the Foreign Legion." Another is Penal Battalion, described as "an authentic record of a living death in a French Military Penal Settlement." Heat, Hell and Humour was the autobiography of Captain James H. Freebody and his adventures as a merchant captain in Central Africa.

Lind then made the switch to writing books for boys, most of them set in the school of Altonbury where the character include Dingy and Pips, the Three Angels (Sid West, Stan Arnold and Jack Garner), Andrew Locking and the inevitable fat lad, Beacon. A second series was set at Orreyford School and featured Rags – Edward Raggett – whose exploits always led to fun and trouble. Lind's books have been described as having a general atmosphere of the knockabout: "unsubtle and plebian, but the yarns are enjoyable enough in a simple way, with plenty of amusing sequences." Two of the books were reprinted in 1961 by Purnell.

As for author, it seems likely that he is the Anton Lind who, according to the 'phone book, lived in London at 7 Grove Park Lodge, Grove Park Road, W.4 in 1938-39. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to track down Electoral Roll records for the area for those dates. In 1931, George Workman lived at the Lodge adjacent to the Grove Park Hotel in Grove Park Road; in 1933 that address was the home of  Frederick and Florence Mary Shaunghnessy. Whether this is "Grove Park Lodge" is questionable, as others (including one C. J. Burnett Knight) lived at Grove Park Lodge in the same period as Lind.

PUBLICATIONS

Novels
Six Tough Fellows. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1935.
Dingy and Pips Ltd., Detectives. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1936; abridged, Paulson, Purnell & Sons, 1961.
Super Term, You Chaps!. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1936.
Win Through, Altonbury!. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1936.
Rags the Invincible. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1937.
Rags, the Airman. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1937.
Riot at Altonbury. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1937.
Secret Service at Altonbury. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1937; abridged, Paulson, Purnell & Sons, 1961.
Tony Hits Out. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1937.
Tony Beats the Band. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1938.
Dingy and Pips in Trouble. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1939.
Leave It to Rags. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1939.
Trouble for Tony. London, Sampson Low & Co., n.d.

Non-fiction
Legion of the Lost by Ex-Légionnaire 1384, in collaboration with Anton Lind. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1934.
Penal Battalion by Roy Baker, as told to Anton Lind. London, Sampson Low & Co., Oct 1934
Heat, Hell and Humour. 231/2º N. -Oº-231/2ºS. By Captain J. H. Freebody, in collaboration with Anton Lind. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1935.

Comic Cuts - 15 March 2012

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Treasure Island . King Solomon's Mines

or Buy the Pair

Every now and then the planets align and something surprising happens. The one does not cause the other. It's a coincidence, nothing more. But quite a surprise when it happens, such as when you have five books come out in nine days, just as you are about to celebrate a birthday or two.

Bear Alley Books was launched in March 2011. The official launch date of the first two books was 25 March, although I see from a contemporary blog post that the first copies were posted out on the 21st. These were followed two months later by the first volume of Eagles Over the Western Front. In total, Bear Alley Books has published 16 volumes in two years ... and if you're not  aware of our books, head over to the Bear Alley Books website and take a look.

We've had one title sell out – the print run was tiny! – and a couple of books that have sold reasonably well. None of the books will be troubling the bestsellers charts any time soon and not one of them has achieved a three-figure circulation, although a couple of titles are creeping towards that landmark. Ten of them have sold under 50 copies although two of those have only just come out. Cumulatively, we've sold around 630 books, so that's an average of about 40 per title.

Not bad for a one-man outfit with zero budget, although I have to admit that it would be nice if the effort-in to profit-out ratio was a little better.

I said that this little celebration involved a number of coincidence. Here's one: as well as the second anniversary of Bear Alley Books, it is also the fifth anniversary of the publication of my first endeavor for Book Palace Books. Set up by Geoff West, I was involved in putting together a reprint of Frank Bellamy's Robin Hood strip from the pages of Swift and that book appeared in March 2008. I have done a few other titles for Book Palace and the latest, the fifth in five years, appears this week.

H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines

By coincidence, it, too, involves King Solomon's Mines. And by coincidence, it, too, has a strip by Mike Hubbard. The planets have aligned, resulting in Hubbard's versions of King Solomon's Mines and its sequel Allan Quatermain, unseen for nearly fifty years, reappearing on the same day! Both strips are stunning and there are good reasons to pick up both of them. The Bear Alley Books' King Solomon's Mines reprints Hubbard's strip in full colour. The Allan Quatermain strip, 'painted' in line & wash, has been reproduced from the original artwork with the text completely reset and the results are astonishingly good. Just see below if you don't believe me.

The book also includes two reprints from the pages of Look and Learn. Bill Baker began adapting King Solomon's Mines in 1978 but never had the chance to complete it. Did he fall ill? Did he die? To my knowledge he never drew another strip.  It was taken over by C. L. Doughty, who completed it in his usual superb, vigorous style. The third strip in this trio is my favourite: an astonishing adaptation of Montezuma's Daughter by Jesus Blasco. It's truly gorgeous and to give you a taste, I'm going to forego the random scans this week and just let you see some of the artwork. Scroll down. You won't regret it.

Allan Quatermain appeared in Ranger, which is, coincidentally, the index that I'm working on at the moment. I have been roughing out some layouts this week and have about forty-five pages done. I'll have more news on this next week.

To add the the celebrations, the French edition of Eagles Over the Western Front was published by Les Éditions Clair de Lune on 7 March. Les Aigles sur le Front Ouest is to be published in three 96-page hardcover volumes, two of which have just appeared, priced €15.90.

I haven't seen the books themselves, just the announcement of their release, but – hard covers aside – they're similar to the editions I put out two years ago. I think they also include the feature material I wrote for the books.

Over the weekend we have the results of my investigation into the writing career of Anton Lind – don't get too excited because I discovered almost nothing! – and a cover gallery featuring the Jim Stringer novels of Andrew Martin.

 

 

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd.)

Commando Issues 4583-4586

Commando issues on sale 14th March 2013

Commando No 4583 – Dungeon Of Doom

The four-man special force known as the Convict Commandos were in dangerous territory. They had entered neutral Spain illegally and were now deep within a castle which bristled with all sorts of perils — from Nazi interrogators to axe-wielding maniacs.
  This time even they had got in too deep!

Story: Alan Hebden
Art: Benet
Cover: Benet

Commando No 4584 – “American Ace”

He stepped off a US freighter in Liverpool and walked straight to the nearest RAF recruiting office to join up. A natural pilot, he was at the controls of a British fighter in no time.
   As his score of victories mounted in the summer of 1940, his fellow pilots never dreamed he carried a secret — one that, if discovered, could be his death warrant!

Story: Mac MacDonald
Art: Carlos Pino
Cover: Carlos Pino

Commando No 4585 – Phantom Sergeant

He moved like a shadow, a ghostly-quiet shape that flitted through the Burmese jungle wherever there was a Japanese soldier to be hunted, an invading enemy to be destroyed.
   Many of those men did see the Phantom Sergeant, but if they did that was the last thing they ever saw…

Introduction

It’s a Commando tradition that we make our stories as authentic and accurate as we possibly can so it’s probably best to admit straight away the aircraft in this tale are not quite up to the mark. Don’t let that put you off, though, the tale is otherwise well drawn and the cover is particularly fine.
   The tale itself is particularly hard — especially on the Japanese. There’s little sympathy for any of them in the story, written less than 20 years after the war finished.
   Still, it’s a fine adventure and one I hope you’ll enjoy.

Calum Laird, Editor

Story: Elliot
Art: Cueto
Cover: Alvaro
Originally Commando No 81 (August 1963).

Commando No 4586 – Heading For Trouble

During the Second World War most officers fought gallantly alongside their men. But a few — like a certain Lieutenant Fairfax — were cowardly, incompetent and more likely to endanger their own troops than the enemy.
   You can bet that any man serving under Fairfax would very soon be
HEADING FOR TROUBLE

Introduction

All Commando stories send the characters on a journey — whether physically, emotionally or metaphorically —and on many occasions this involves the journey from villain or anti-hero to hero. Heading For Trouble neatly turns this notion on its head, however. Sergeant Ian Cheam starts out as an instant, reliable Commando hero but soon his path leads towards that of a cynical anti-hero. Where will his journey end…?

Scott Montgomery, Deputy Editor

Story: Allan Chalmers
Art: Ibanez
Cover: Ian Kennedy
Originally Commando No 2151 (January 1988), re-issued as No 3579 (December 2002)

A Whatoff Allen

Wrapping up our little series on Operator 1384, we need to take a brief look at A. Whatoff Allen, who was one of a number of authors who ghosted work for David Harvey John Jones, later Barrington, aka John Henry Harvey, aka Ex-Legionnaire 1384.

Little is known about the curiously named A. Whatoff Allen. A Google search will result in a few hits, almost wholly based around two mentions: a review of his novel Exit an Admiral by Steve Lewis posted on Mystery*File on 15 May 2007 and a Find A Grave reference to David Whatoff Allen, who died in New Zealand on 22 May 1998. Even this date is disputed ... the Oxford University Gazette for 17 July 1997 – note the year – notes that he attended St Edmund Hall as a commoner in 1936-37 and died on 22 May 1997, aged 79.

David Whatoff Allen was the son of Alfred Whatoff Allen. Alfred was born on 8 March 1888 and baptized at St. John's, Kentish Town, on 20 May 1888. He was the son of Alfred Allen (1855-1940) and his wife Mary Ann (nee Adcock) of 11 Dartmouth Park Road and the baptizm was performed by Alfred, who was a clerk in Holy Orders.

Alfred was one of four children, his siblings including Ronald Castledine Allen (b. 22 January 1885, although he claimed to have been born a year earlier in 1884), who later emigrated to America and became a naturalized citizen in 1911, Norman Martin Allen (b. 4 August 1894), who died in 1897, aged only 2, and Wilfred Castledine Allen (b. 4 June 1891; d. 1956).

At the time of the 1891 census, the family were living in St. Pancras; in 1901 Alfred and his youngest son Wilfred were living at Christ Church Vicarage, Eastbourne. In 1905, Alfred Allen was married to Mary Longcroft Rich and had two further children, Muriel Longcroft Allen (b. 1906) and Charles Herbert Allen (b. 1908). Alfred later lived at 8 Redcliffe Road, Nottingham, and died at the General Hospital, Nottingham, on 20 November 1940, leaving effects of just over £4,000 to his son Alfred and daughter Muriel Longcroft Allen.

I haven't managed to track down Alfred Whatoff Allen in the 1901 census when his father was living in Eastbourne. Alfred may have been elsewhere as a scholar at school. In 1911, he was a boarder in 43 Rylett Road, Fulham, and worked as an insurance clerk. On 15 August 1914 he married Marjorie Christian Thompson (the daughter of military tailor Thomas Alexander Thompson) at St. George's, Tufnell Park, Islington. At that time he was living at 36 Parkhurst Road and his occupation given as Insurance Inspector. Their son, David Whatoff Allen, was born on 26 May 1917.

In the early 1920s, the Allens were living at Norbury Cottage and, later, Ivylands Cottage, in Epping, around which time Alfred became an active writer, contributing to The Sketch, Brief Stories and Windsor Magazine. His known output is very patchy, which may indicate that he wrote only in his spare time. He seems to have been a capable writer: chosen to ghost a novel for a popular figure – Operator 1384 – in 1935 (the book was published in January 1936), and author of a novel which reviewer Steve Lewis describes thus:

As a detective novel, Exit an Admiral leaves a certain amount to be desired, but it is also crammed full of clues, derring-do, more clues (a house full of them), mistaken identities, false trails, even more evidence and other clues, and I tell you up front, this was an extreme pleasure to read...

Lewis ends his review saying "One is ... left with the hope of another detective thriller from the pen or typewriter of A. Whatoff Allen, but for whatever reason, alas, such a one was not to be."

What  happened to Allen's burgeoning career as a novelist? According to the Electorial Register, in 1939 Allen was living at  26 Vereker Road, Fulham, with no sign of his wife. And that is the last trace of him, other than a pair of post-War plays, until his death, which was registered in Paddington, London, in 1970.

PUBLICATIONS

Novels
Exit an Admiral. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1938.

Books as Operator 1384 (ghosted)
The Catacombs of Death. London, Hutchinson & Co., Jan 1936.

Plays
One Little Kiss, with Edward Dyer (produced Adelphi Theatre, London, July 1929)
The Case of Barry Arden. A play in three acts (produced(?), © 16 March 1949)
Only Mugs Carry Guns (produced Theatre Royal, Chatham, 14 Feb 1955)

William James Blackledge

William James Blackledge was an author whose fame (and I use the term loosely) rests on a series of books he wrote about the foreign legion in the 1930s. His collaborator was known as Ex-Légionnaire 1384, although the former soldier's real name was David Harvey John Jones, although at that time he was using the name John Henry Harvey.

Blackledge also wrote a handful of books under his own byline, most notably Hell's Broth Militia, which concerned adventures with the Kurram militia on the north-west frontier, and The Legion of Marching Madmen, an account of the Tigris Expedition under General Townshend which was serialised in the magazine Liberty in the US in 1935-36 credited to Captain W. J. Blackledge. Other books ghosted by Blackledge include Digger Craven's account of his experiences in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915.

Blackledge was born in Bolton in 1886, the son of Joseph Blackledge (a warehouseman) and Sarah Ellen Blackledge (nee Banks). He was baptized at St. Matthew, Bolton, on 15 December. He grew up in Bolton along with his younger siblings Sarah Ann Blackledge (b. 1889) and Elsie Blackledge (b. 27 Feb 1896; d. 1979).

At the age of 24, at the time of the 1911 census, William was still living with his family at 77 Mortfield Lane,  Bolton, his occupation given as Clogger – a clog maker – and his sisters both worked in the cotton spinning industry. Joseph Blackledge had died in 1908

Blackledge's circumstances changed dramatically over the next few years. One assumes he was involved somehow in the First World War, but the next trace of him is his marriage on 4 December 1920 to Mary Eveline Cherry at The Parish Church (St. Margaret), Toxteth Park, Lancashire. Now described as a Journalist, he was living at 36 Roseberry Street. The couple are thought to have had two children, Joseph A. Blackledge (b. 1921) and William A. Blackledge (b. 1926).

In 1935, his occupation described as Author, he travelled to New York. His work had proven popular with at least one magazine: Liberty had serialised or taken extracts from a number of his books, including Hell Hounds of France (with Ex-Légionnaire 1384), Death Squads in Morocco (with Terry Brennan) and "Night Raiders in China", with Gordon B. Enders (1937), which may not have appeared in book form (a book from that period, Nowhere Else in the World (New York, Farrar & Rinehart, 1935) is credited by Gordon Enders and Edward Anthony.

The Second World War brought the accounts of  warring in the Foreign Legion to an end. Blackledge attempted to turn to writing fiction, his final pre-war book being a novel, A Girl in the Spy Racket and his only known post-war book was also a novel, Give the Lady a Camel.

He died in Westminster in 2Q 1948, aged 61. His widow is thought to have survived him and died in 1965, aged 77.

PUBLICATIONS

Books
Hell's Broth Militia. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1936.
The Legion of Marching Madmen. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1936.
Lovers in the Desert. London, Heath, Cranton, 1936.
A Girl in the Spy Racket. London, T. Werner Laurie, 1939.
Give the Lady a Camel. London, W. P. Nimmo, Hay & Mitchell, 1948.

Books as Ex-Légionnaire 1384
Hell Hounds of France, in collaboration with W. J. Blackledge. London, 1932.
Zillah: Child of the Desert, with W. J. Blackledge. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1932.
With the Secret Service in Morocco, as told to W. J. Blackledge. London, 1934.
The Soulless Legion, in collaboration with W. J. Blackledge. London, Denis Archer, 1934.
The Arab Patrol. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1935.
The Desert Patrol. London & Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1935.
Spies of the Sahara. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1936.
The Son of Allah. London, Rich & Cowan, Jan 1937.
The Mutiny of Fort Saada. London, Sampson Low & Co., 1937.
Eater of Women by W. J. Blackledge, in collaboration with Ex-Legionnaire 1384. London, T. Werner Laurie, Aug 1938. [About the north-west frontier province of India]

Books as Terry Brennan
Death Squads in Morocco, as told to W. J. Blackledge. London, Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1937. 

Books as Patrolman Craven
Hell Riders. An account of the Irak Desert Patrol, as told to W. J. Blackledge. London, Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1935.

Books as Digger Craven
Peninsula of Death, as told to W. J. Blackledge. London, Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1937.

(* Illustration by Walter Baumhofer from Liberty, 27 December 1935.)