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Personal and military papers of Major General Sir Robert Edward Laycock, 1923-1968, chiefly relating to service with Special Service Brigade and as Chief of Combined Operations, 1940-1946. Includes papers on volunteering for Special Service Brigade, including completed application forms for volunteer Commando officers, 1940. Papers on Special Service Brigade training 1940-1941, including gas, bayonet and signalling training. Memoranda, reports, instructions and other papers, 1940-1942, relating to LAYFORCE (commanded by Laycock in the Middle East), including papers on the Folbot Section (later to become Special Boat Service). Papers on Special Service Brigade, [1941-1946], including memoranda, reports, minutes, papers on their reorganisation, disbandment and the future of Combined Operations, also including papers belonging to Lord George Jellicoe relating to Special Service Brigade in the Middle East; reports and other papers on Special Service Brigade operations, notably Operation TORCH, (the invasion of North West Africa, Nov 1942) and Operation HUSKY, (the invasion of Sicily, Jun 1943). Laycock's official and personal correspondence,1923-1968, chiefly relating to Special Service Brigade. Lectures and speeches to and on Special Service Brigade, chiefly by Laycock. Draft publications, scripts and press cuttings relating to Laycock and Special Service Brigade. Memoirs and accounts of Commando action, including parts of Robert Edward Laycock's memoirs and memoirs of members of 'G' Troop, 7 Commando. Papers on Laycock standing as Conservative parliamentary candidate for Bassetlaw in the 1945 general collection and on his refusal to stand for the 1947 bye-election. Papers relating to Laycock's time as Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Malta. Poems by Laycock.

Typescript official correspondence relating to Allied operations in Italy, 1944-1945, between Kirkman, General Officer Commanding 13 Corps, and Lt Gen Sir Oliver (William Hargreaves) Leese, 3rd Bt, General Officer Commanding 8 Army, Mar-Oct 1944, Lt Gen Sir John Harding, Chief of Staff, Allied Armies in Italy, Aug 1944-Jan 1945, and Lt Gen Sir Richard (Loudon) McCreery,General Officer Commanding 10 Corps, and subsequently General Officer Commanding 8 Army, Sep 1944-Jan 1945. Typescript 13 Corps operational instructions and orders, Apr 1944-Jan 1945, with typescript planning notes, dated Apr 1944, for Operation HONKER, the attack to secure the Liri valley for the advance on Rome, Italy, May 1944. Four volumes of narrative diaries, covering Kirkman's career in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, North West Europe and as Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff, War Office, Apr 1943-Sep 1945. Printed booklet entitled 'Proceedings of the Royal Artillery Historical Society, 19 Apr 1968, 5 Nov 1968', containing information provided byKirkman on the planning of the Third and Fourth Battles of Cassino, Italy, 1944.

Papers, dated 1945-1963, relating to the attempt to remove Lt Gen Sir William Joseph Slim from command of 14 Army, Burma, May 1945, including typescript background notes; typescript copies of telegrams between Lt Gen Sir Oliver William Hargreaves Leese, 3rd Bt, Commander-in-Chief, Allied Land Forces South East Asia, FM Sir Alan Francis Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and acting Adm Lord Louis (Francis Albert Victor Nicholas) Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia, May-Jun 1945; typescript extract of unpublished chapter of Defeat into victory (Cassell, London, 1956) by Slim; letters from Gen Sir (Alexander Frank) Philip Christison, 4th Bt, (former General Officer Commanding 15 Indian Corps, Burma), FM Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck (former Commander-in-Chief, India), ACM Sir (William) Alec Coryton (former Air Commander, 3 Tactical Air Force, Burma), Maj Gen George Peregrine Walsh (former Chief of Staff, Allied Land Forces, South East Asia), Lt Gen Sir Frederick Arthur Montague Browning (former Chief of Staff, South East Asia Command), Leese and Mountbatten, 1960-1963.