Arthur Frederick Crane Nicholls

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.

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. He is commemorated in a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, the Tirana Park Memorial Cemetery.

Nicholls' George Cross was gazetted on 26 February 1946, and dated 1 March 1946. The citation reads:

In January 1940 Nicholls married Dorothy Ann Violet Schuster, they having a daughter in 1943. His widow later married Archibald Dunlop Mackenzie who had also served with SOE during the war. All of Nicholls's medals have been presented to his regiment by his daughter.

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