Key Information
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1893-1965 (Creation)
Level of description
Collection
Extent
26 boxes or 0.26 cubic metres
Scope and content
Papers relating to his life and career, 1917-1963, principally comprising official correspondence with Lt Gen M Brocas Burrows, British Military Mission, Moscow, 1944-1945, Gen Mark Wayne Clark, US Army, 1943-1944, 1951-1952, Maj Gen Richard Henry Dewing, UK Army and RAF Liaison Staff, Australia, 1943-1944, Maj Gen Gordon Edward Grimsdale, Military Attaché andhead of Military Mission to Chungking, China, 1942-1943, AF Sir Roger John Brownlow Keyes, Bt, Director of Combined Operations, War Office, 1940-1942, Lt Gen Sir Henry Pownall, South East Asia Command HQ, 1944-1945, Lt Gen Sir Harold Redman, British Joint Staff Mission, Washington DC, 1943-1944, AF Sir James Somerville, Commander-in-Chief Eastern Fleet, 1943-1947, and Maj Gen Sir Edward Spears, Minister to the Lebanon, 1940-1944, and Lt Gen Albert C Wedemeyer, US Army, Deputy Chief of Staff; South East Asia Command, 1944; personal correspondence with and about FM Lord Alanbrooke, 1946-1947, 1957-1963, FM Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck, 1941-1961, and FM Archibald Percival Wavell, Viscount Wavell of Cyrenaica and of Winchester, 1943-1946; official andpersonal correspondence with Dwight David Eisenhower, 1942-1965, and AF Louis (Francis Albert Victor Nicholas) Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, 1943-1954, 1960-1964; correspondence with publishers and colleagues, including Gen Sir Richard Nugent O'Connor; papers relating to India, 1947-1951, including his correspondence as Chief of Staff to Mountbatten, 1947, notes on interviews with Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahomed Ali Jinnah, 1947, letters describing the political situation in India, 1947-1948, and correspondence concerning compensation for Indian Government servants, 1948-1951; correspondence concerning the proposed defence reorganisation, 1955-1963; papers relating to his service as Secretary General, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 1952-1957, including his official progress reports, 1952-1956; newspaper cuttings, statements to the press and texts of speeches and broadcasts, 1952-1957; papers relating to his memoirs, [1940-1960] including correspondence with publishers, 1960-1961, and colleagues, 1957-1960, notebooks, 1940-1960, and drafts and proofs, [1960]. newspaper cuttings, 1943, 1948, 1951-1952, 1957; texts of speeches, 1943-1958; correspondence relating to operations in Somaliland, 1917-1920; notes and papers relating to his studies at Staff College, Quetta and RAF Staff College, 1922-1924. Papers relating to Rt Hon Sir Winston (Leonard Spencer) Churchill, 1940-1965, including personal correspondence with Churchill, 1940, 1943-1945, 1947-1964; correspondence relating to Churchill's memoir The Second World War (Cassell, London, 1948-1954), 1946-1956, including correspondence relating to Dieppe Raid, Aug 1942, dated 1950, and galley proofs, [1948-1954]. Printed material, 1941-1945, 1947, 1951, notably including copies of telegrams sent by Winston Churchill as Prime Minister, 1941-1942; minutes of Chiefs of Staff meetings, 1943-1944; minutes of Combined Chiefs of Staff meetings, 1943, 1945.
System of arrangement
Arranged in the following sections: personal papers, including speeches and material relating to Ismay's memoirs; papers relating to Churchill; subject files; special personal correspondence; general and miscellaneous correspondence; printed material.
General Information
Name of creator
Biographical history
Born in 1887; educated at Charterhouse and Royal Military College, Sandhurst; commissioned, 1905; joined 21 Cavalry (Frontier Force), 1907; served on North West Frontier of India, 1908; Captain, 1914; served in Somaliland, 1914-1920; Staff College, Quetta, 1922; Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General, Army Headquarters, India, 1923; RAF Staff College, Andover, 1924; Army Headquarters, India, 1925; Assistant Secretary, Committee of Imperial Defence, 1926-1930; Lt Col, 1931; Military Secretary to Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Earl of Willingdon, Viceroy of India, 1931-1933; Colonel, 1932; General Staff Officer Grade 1, War Office, 1933-1936; Deputy Secretary, Committee of Imperial Defence, 1936-1938; Secretary, Committee of Imperial Defence, 1938; Maj Gen, 1939;Chief of Staff to Minister of Defence (Rt Hon Sir Winston (Leonard Spencer) Churchill), 1940-1945; Deputy Secretary (Military) to War Cabinet, 1940-1945; Lt Gen, 1942; Gen, 1944; Additional Secretary (Military) to the Cabinet, 1945; Chief of Staff of Viceroy of India (R Adm Louis (Francis Albert Victor Nicholas) Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma), 1947; Chairman of Council, 1951 Festival of Britain, 1948-1951; Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 1951-1952; Secretary General, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 1952-1957; Vice-Chairman of North Atlantic Council, 1952-1956, Chairman of North Atlantic Council, 1956-1957; publication of The memoirs of General the Lord Ismay (Heinemann, London, 1960); died in 1965.
Repository
Custodial history
Placed in the Centre by the family in 1966, 1969 and 1970
Conditions governing access
Open, subject to signature of Reader's undertaking form, and appropriate provision of two forms of identification, to include one photographic ID.
Conditions governing reproduction
Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied from open material for research purposes only.
Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, via the Archives.
Language of material
- English
Script of material
Finding aids
This collection level description. Further finding aids may be available in the Reading Room.
Related materials
Publication note
The following books all make substantial use of the Ismay papers: The worst disaster, the fall of Singapore by Raymond Callahan (University of Delaware Press, Newark and Associated University Press, London, 1977);Burma, 1942-1945 by Raymond Callahan (Davis Poynter, London, 1978); Shattered peace, the origins of the Cold War and the national security state by Daniel Yergin (Deutsch, London, 1978); Allies of a kind, the United States, Britain and the war against Japan, 1941-1945 by Christopher Thorne (Hamilton, London, 1978); 1941, Armageddon by Richard Collier (Hamilton, London, 1981); Churchill's Indian summer, the Conservative government, 1951-1955 by Anthony Selden (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1981); King George VI by Sara Bradford (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1989); Conscription and the Attlee governments, the politics and policy of national service, 1945-1951 by Leonard Victor Scott (Clarendon, Oxford, 1993); Dilemmas of appeasement, British deterrence and defense by Gaines Post (Cornell University Press and Ithaca, London, 1993); A world at arms, a global history of World War Two by Gerhard Ludwig Weinberg (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994).
Note
Compiled Jan 1997
Alternative identifier(s)
Subjects
- Alliances
- Amphibious warfare
- Armed forces
- Biographies
- Colonial countries
- Communication process
- Conferences
- Decolonization
- Diplomacy
- Documents
- East West relations
- Field work
- Foreign relations
- Group communication
- Higher science education
- History
- Information sources
- International conflicts
- International relations
- Interviews
- Literary forms and genres
- Literature
- Memoirs
- Military education
- Military engineering
- Military history
- Military missions
- Military operations
- Military organizations
- Organizations
- Political systems
- Prose
- Research work
- State security
- War
- Warfare
- World wars (events)
- World War Two (1939-1945)
- Wars (events)
People and Organisations
- Auchinleck, Sir Claude John Eyre, 1884-1981, Knight, Field Marshal (Subject)
- Brooke, Alan Francis, 1883-1963, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke of Brookeborough, Field Marshal (Subject)
- Burrows, M Brocas, fl 1944-1945, Lieutenant General (Subject)
- Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer, 1874-1965, Knight, statesman (Subject)
- Clark, Mark Wayne, 1896-1984, US General (Subject)
- Dewing, Richard Henry, 1891-1981, Major General (Subject)
- Eisenhower, Dwight David, 1890-1969, US President, General (Subject)
- Grimsdale, Gordon Edward, fl 1942-1943, Major General (Subject)
- Jinnah, Muhammed Ali, 1876-1948, Muslim politician and founder of Pakistan (Subject)
- Keyes, Roger John Brownlow, 1872-1945, 1st Baron Keyes of Zeebrugge and Dover, Admiral of the Fleet (Subject)
- Mountbatten, Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas, 1900-1979, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Admiral of the Fleet (Subject)
- Nehru, Jawaharlal, 1889-1964, Prime Minister of India (Subject)
- O'Connor, Sir Richard Nugent, 1889-1981, Knight, General (Subject)
- Pownall, Sir Henry Royds, 1887-1961, Lieutenant General (Subject)
- Redman, Sir Harold, 1899-1986, Knight, Lieutenant General (Subject)
- Somerville, Sir James Fownes, 1882-1949, Knight, Admiral of the Fleet (Subject)
- Spears, Sir Edward Louis, 1886-1974, 1st Baronet, Major General (Subject)
- Wavell, Archibald Percival, 1883-1950, 1st Earl Wavell, Field Marshal (Subject)
- Wedermeyer, Albert C, fl 1944, US Lieutenant General (Subject)
- British Army (Subject)
- Casablanca Conference (1943) (Subject)
- Combined Chiefs of Staff (Subject)
- NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Subject)
- RAF, Royal Air Force (Subject)
- Trident Conference, May 1943 (Subject)
Genre access points
Rules and/or conventions used
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000.