King's College London
Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives

Survey of the Papers of Senior UK Defence Personnel, 1900-1975

Service biography
World War I, UK and France 1914-1918; Capt, Essex Regt 1916; Commander, 7 Bn Bedfordshire Regt and 2 Bn Bedfordshire Regt 1918-1919; British Military Mission to North Russia 1919; Staff College Camberley 1923-1924; Maj, Cheshire Regt 1924; on staff, Nigeria Regt, West African Frontier Force 1925-1929; RN Staff College, Greenwich 1930; General Staff Officer Grade 2, Staff College, Camberley 1931-1932; Commander Lieutenant General, 2 Bn 22 (Cheshire) Regt 1932-1936; Imperial Defence College 1935; General Staff Officer Grade 1, Malaya 1936-1938; Brig, General Staff, Aldershot Command 1938-1939; World War II 1939-1945; Brig, General Staff, 1 Corps, British Expeditionary Force (BEF) 1939-1940; General Officer Commanding 43 (Wessex) Div 1940; Assistant Chief of the Imperial General Staff, War Office 1940; General Officer Commanding 44 (Home Counties) Div 1940-1941; General Officer Commanding Malaya 1941-1942; Japanese POW, Formosa 1942-1945; retired 1946; Col Cheshire Regt 1950-1955

Papers
IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM, LONDON: Papers 1914-1954 (ref: P16-29), including; a history of 7 Bn, Bedfordshire Regt 1914-1918, with photograph album; reports, maps, photographs and personal ephemera relating to his service with 46 Bn, Royal Fusiliers in the North Russia Relief Force 1919; photographs and press cuttings relating to his service in Ireland 1920-1922; personal accounts, correspondence, lectures, press cuttings and maps 1936-1954, relating to the British preparations for the defence of Malaya and Singapore, the Japanese invasion, 1941-1942, and POW camp life, 1942-1945, including: Percival's diaries 1943-1945; a draft of Maj Gen Stanley Woodburn Kirby's The war against Japan, with two letters from Kirby and amendments suggested by Percival; account by Col Charles Hillary Wild (Percival's interpreter) of the negotiations leading to the fall of Singapore 1942; the papers of Lt Gen Sir Lewis Macclesfield Heath (ref: P441-2) include correspondence with Percival 1945-1946 (nine items), including discussion of honours and awards, comment on the discrepancies in sources for the compilation of accounts of the campaign in Malaya, and Heath's criticisms of Percival; the Heath papers also include typescript drafts of Heath's 'Note on the Malayan Campaign' 1946, intended for incorporation into the official history of 11 Indian Div, with typescript comments on the draft by Percival

Publications
The war in Malaya (Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1949)

Index terms
SUBJECTS strategy 1941-1942
PLACES North West Europe 1914-1919; Western Front 1914-1918; USSR 1919; South East Asia 1936-1938; South East Asia 1941-1945
NAMES

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