Brig. Arthur Frederick Crane Nicholls GC, ERD.
British Army att. Special Operations Executive Coldstream Guards
from:Swinbrook, Oxfordshire
(d.11th Feb 1944)
Arthur Nicholls was the son of Joseph Crane Nicholls, and of Josephine Crane Nicholls (nee Campbell); husband of Dorothy Ann Violet Nicholls (nee Schuster), of Swinbrook, Oxfordshire. He was 33 years oldwhen he lost his life and was buried in the Tirana Park Memorial Cemetery in Albania. His grave is now lost and he is mentioned on the Special Memorial E.
The following details are given in the London Gazette of 1st March 1946: "Awarded the George Cross for most conspicuous gallantry in carrying out hazardous work in a very brave manner." Brigadier Nicholls parachuted into Albania in October 1943 as General Staff Officer to the Allied Military Mission which organised resistance activities. The Mission was attacked and broken up by the Germans in December and from then on Brigadier Nicholls lived as a fugitive in the open mountains in freezing weather. He continued leading the remnants of the Mission but was suffering from frostbite so severely that he ordered an inexperienced man to amputate both his legs without anaesthetic. He was pulled over the mountains lying upon his greatcoat by two members of his party. He was determined to reach a British Mission to make his report upon which the course of the war in Albania would depend. He succeeded in this but had gone beyond the limits of endurance and died from gangrene and heart failure.
