HERO OF CALAIS

Hokitika Guardian, 13 September 1940, Page 1

HERO OF CALAIS

A BRILLIANT OFFICER

LONDON. August 1(5,

The .name has been revealed of the man who carried out the order “Hold Calais to the end” with 3,0(10 British soldiers and 1,000 Frenchmen, refused to surrender, and for four days kept hack powerful German forces, making possible the evacuation from Dunkirk. He is Brigadier Claude Nicholson, win is just 42. lie is now a prisoner of war in Germany, and a letter lrnm him has reached his wife. They have two children. .

It will be recalled that Brigadier Nicholson told the Germans that the British did not surrender, and his men fought until their ammunition and food were exhausted. Mr Churchill stated in the House of Commons that only 30 survivors were brought off by the Navy.

Brigadier Nicholson, who - formerly commanded the loth/sth Lancers, was at the outbre<i\k of the war on the staff of the Director of Military Training at the War Office. He wasthen piomoted to brigadier and placed in command of a brigade composed of the King’s Royal Rifk Corps, Rifle Brigade and the Queen Victoria’s Rifle,s, a London Territorial battalion.

General Sir Hubert Gough, a di.*e friend, described Brigadier Niche! mil as “the most brilliant officer »i h.s standing • in the British Army” and the “must able and clear-head’d s-oi-dier of his age that I know, '