Major

Lieutenant Colonel

108448

No.1 Malaria Field Laboratory, RAMC,

Middle East Forces

Crete January 1941

Greece Late January-April

Crete April-June

POW, Dulag Kreta: 2 June-20 July

Left Crete, HMS Torbay, for Alexandria, 20 August

Dulag Kreta, Crete, June-July 1941

South African national, took up British citizenship (date unclear). Born in Pietermaritzburg, 1900, and brought up in South Africa. Wartime experiences from 1939-45, including service in Egypt, Palestine, Sierra Leone and Italy, are described in regular, very detailed letters to wife Betty, in family archive. Additional accounts concerning Greece and Crete were written in late 1941 and 1942, part while on service in Freetown, Sierra Leone, all now in family archive. More than 100,000 words in total.

Other information including sources

After the war, he was Deputy Director of the Ross Institute, linked to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, building on his specialist interest in malaria developed during the war. The focus of the Institute was the study of the nature and treatment, propagation and prevention of tropical disease. He travelled widely in West and East Africa and India until his retirement in 1958. He died in Eastbourne, East Sussex, in 1966.

Publications by Tredre include: The Role of Anopheles gambiae var. Melas in the Transmission of Malaria in the Vicinity of Freetown Estuary, Sierra Leone, 1943, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (1946).

Notes on Preservation of Personal Health in Warm Climates, Ross Institute (1951).

He was editor of The Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (January 1953 to June 1958).

STORY

We are pleased to share with you the story of Major Ralph Ford Tredre’s time in Greece.  Please click on the heading/link below which will take you to the PDF file.

Greece 1941 Diaries, Major Ralph Ford Tredre