Thanks for the reply - Francis was in the Indian Army reserves reaching the dizzy heights of 2nd Lieut. We were told that a person coulnt join the Indian Army unless they were British or Indian - Francis was American (or he was when he naturalised British in 1933) and so it is all a bit of a puzzle. Thanks Linda & Tony G'day, in 1916, there were two Armies in India: the British, and the Indian. The latter was composed of "local" troops, with mostly British officers. A fairly complete list of soldiers in the British Army in WW1 is available on-line from the UK PRO. I searched "Francis COLLINS", and got 58 hits. There were no obvious connections with your bloke. Do you have any more details of his military service