Cameron Nicholson

General Sir Cameron Gordon Graham Nicholson, (30 June 1898 – 7 July 1979) was a British Army officer who served as Adjutant-General to the Forces. He later served as Governor of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. Military career After being educated at Wellington College, Berkshire and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, Cameron Nicholson was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in July 1915. He served in the First World War and was awarded Military Cross and Bar in 1918. The citation for his MC reads: Nicholson served with the Royal Horse Artillery in France, India, Iraq, Palestine and Egypt from 1917 to 1927. He served as an instructor at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich from 1927 to 1930, attended the Staff College, Camberley from 1931 to 1932, and then worked as an instructor at the Staff College from 1938 to 1939. He served in the Second World War and was awarded Distinguished Service Order and Bar in 1940. The beginning of the war in September 1939 found him still at the Staff College as an instructor, but this came to an end in February 1940, after which he was posted to the 45th Infantry Division, then commanded by Major-General Desmond Anderson, as a General Staff Officer Grade 1 (GSO1). He was not there for long, however, as towards the end of April he was requested by Major-General Bernard Paget to be his chief of staff. Paget had been selected to command 'Sickleforce' in the Norwegian campaign. The idea behind this ultimately doomed expedition was the British and French response to the German invasion of Norway, a consequence of which led to British and French troops being sent to Narvik in the north and to Namsos and Åndalsnes in Central Norway, with the British and French given the task of expelling the Germans from the major port of Trondheim, which lay between them. Paget's 'Sickleforce' consisted mainly of the 148th Infantry Brigade, a poorly trained and equipped Territorial Army (TA) formation, which had already landed at Åndalsnes and was by that time at the village of Dombås, on the road to the town of Lillehammer, and the 15th Infantry Brigade, a well-trained Regular Army formation which had been part of the 5th Division in France with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) until being withdrawn for the campaign in Norway.