Kelly's War

In this remarkable book, historians Jon Cooksey and Graham McKechnie present the extraordinary story of Frederick Kelly, the musician, composer and Olympic rower who was killed in action during the Great War. Frederick Kelly's war diary, written between 1914 and 1916, has never been published in its entirety and is a wholly unique document of the First World War. Impeccably detailed and beautifully written, Kelly's diary offers an exclusive insight into a unique formation of the First World War the Royal Naval Division, a group of sailors serving on land as soldiers. The RND was formed by Winston Churchill and included some of the most eminent scholars, thinkers, artists and athletes of the time men such as Rupert Brooke, with whom Kelly was intimately acquainted and whose final hours Kelly witnessed.