Brothers Jules, Leon and Georges Le Blond

Sergeant Jules Le Blond 1st Battalion, Royal Guernsey Light Infantry 1914-15 Star

 

Sergeant Jules E Le Blond. 1914-1915 Star. 2523 Royal Guernsey Light Infantry Ex 3254 RIR. To 35492 RIR 08/03/19. B.1884 at St Helier, Jersey. Son of Esprit Napoleon Le Blond and Celestine Victorine Lepelletier Le Blond, of 6, Rohais, St Peter Port.

Sergeant Leon Le Blond. 1914-1915 Star. Hampshire Regiment. Born 1887 at St Saviour's, Jersey. Enlisted at Guernsey. He served in India with the Hampshire Regiment before the Great War and had been in the Dardanelles before going to the Western Front. Died of wounds in 1917.

Private Georges Le Blond. 1914-1915 Star 706397 Private UK Labour Corps Ex 12324 Dorsetshire Regiment. B.1886 at St Saviour's, Jersey. Husband of Hermine Le Blond. Son of Esprit Napoleon Le Blond and Celestine Victorine Lepelletier Le Blond, of 6, Rohais, St Peter Port.

 

The Le Blond family were not of long standing in Guernsey. Originally from Normandy, they left France at the end of the 19th Century when the French government closed the Catholic schools and decreed that all education was to be secular.

They spent some years in Jersey (Sergeant Leon Le Blond was born there) before moving to Guernsey. Leon became a regular soldier. He served in India with the Hampshire Regiment before the Great War and had been in the Dardanelles before going to the Western Front. I believe that his brother Georges had also been a regular in the Dorsetshire Regiment before the Great War and then transfeered to the Labour Corps.The third brother, Jules was a member of the Royal Guernsey Militia before the war and had joined the Royal Irish Regiment when war came. He later spent some time with the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry. He appears on the rolls of both regiments in Eddie Parks' book "Diex Aix", but with an 'e' mistakenly added to his surname on both. According to Eddie's lists his RGM number was 1813, his RIR number was 3254 and his RGLI number was 2523. 3254 is the number on his medals. He finished his career back in the Royal Irish Regiment (He later recalled Captain Tommy Hutchesson as his OC), which was disbanded in 1922 when Ireland was partitioned. He then left the Army and returned to Guernsey to see out his life. He died of cancer in the late 1950s.