Arthur Nicholls (British Army officer)
Recipient of the George Cross
Brigadier Arthur Frederick Crane Nicholls, (6 February 1911 – 11 February 1944) was a British Army officer who was awarded the George Cross for gallantry and leadership on active service with the Special Operations Executive in Albania in 1944. He is the only member of the Coldstream Guards to have been awarded the decoration.
Early life
Nicholls was born in Hampstead on 6 February 1911. He attended Shardlow Hall, Marlborough College in Wiltshire and studied law at Pembroke College, Cambridge. After graduating in 1933, he worked as a stockbroker. He was commissioned into the 86th (East Anglian) (Hertfordshire Yeomanry) Field Brigade, Royal Artillery, Territorial Army as a second lieutenant in August 1933, was promoted lieutenant on 3 August 1936, and transferred to the Coldstream Guards (Supplementary Reserve) in May 1937.
Second World War
Mobilised in 1939, Nicholls went to France with the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards, but was soon posted to the Headquarters of the First Division as an Intelligence Officer to make the best use of his command of French and German. In May 1940 he was evacuated from Dunkirk, after which he was stationed in England.
In March 1942 he joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE). In October 1943, by now a temporary lieutenant-colonel, he parachuted into Albania to serve as Staff Officer to Brigadier Edmund Frank "Trotsky" Davies with the task of inciting resistance to the German occupation and tying down enemy forces.
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