IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0099 KCLMA Crick
Held at: Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London
Title: CRICK, Dr Alan John Pitts (1913-1995)
Date(s): 1938-1984
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: 1.5 boxes or 0.015 cubic metres
Name of creator(s): Crick | Alan John Pitts | 1913-1995 | civil servant and historian
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Born 1913; educated at Minehead Modern School, Somerset, Latymer Upper School, London, King's College London and Heidelberg University, Germany; Acting Vice Consul and Vice Consul, British Consulate General, Free City of Danzig, 1938-1939; service in World War Two, 1939-1945; enlisted in Army, 1939; commissioned, 1940; Intelligence Officer, Auxiliary Units, General Headquarters Home Forces, and Instructor in irregular warfare, 1940-1941; Instructor, German Interrogation Course, Cambridge, 1941; posted to Middle East, 1941; Intelligence Officer, Headquarters 8 Army, Egypt and Libya, 1941-1942; General Staff Officer 3, General Headquarters Middle East, and Headquarters 10 Corps, Jun-Sep 1942; General Staff Officer 3, Headquarters 8 Army, 1942-1943; General Staff Officer 2, Instructor on War Intelligence Course, School of Military Intelligence, Matlock, Derbyshire, 1943-1944; served in North West Europe, 1944-1945; Maj, General Staff Officer 2, Operational Intelligence, G2 Division, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF), 1944-1945; General Staff Officer 2, Tactical Headquarters 21 Army Group and Headquarters British Army of the Rhine, 1945; Deputy Head of Political Intelligence Section, Headquarters British Army of the Rhine, 1945; demobilised, Dec 1945; Personal Assistant, Messrs Williams and Williams, Chester and London, 1946; Senior Research Officer, Joint Intelligence Bureau, 1946-1948; Joint Services Staff College, 1948; Deputy Assistant Director, Joint Intelligence Bureau, 1950-1953; British Joint Services Mission, Washington DC, USA, 1953-1956; awarded OBE, 1956; Assistant Director, Joint Intelligence Bureau, 1957-1963; Imperial Defence College, 1960; Counsellor, British Embassy, Washington DC, USA, 1963-1965; Chairman, Joint Intelligence Staff, Cabinet Office, 1965-1968; Assistant Director (Economic Intelligence), Defence Intelligence Staff, Ministry of Defence, 1968-1973; Director of Economic Intelligence, Defence Intelligence Staff, Ministry of Defence, 1970-1973; Deputy Chief Adviser to Commercial Union Assurance Company Limited, 1973-1978; died 1995. Publications: Die Persönlichkeit Johann Christian Günthers (Heinrich Fahrer, Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim, Germany, 1938); translation, with Douglas Scott and R F C Hull, of Existence and being by Martin Heidegger (Vision, London, 1949); translation, with E E Thomas, of Ostasien denkt anders (The mind of East Asia) by Lily Abegg (Thames, London, 1952); In the caves of the mind. Poems by Alan Crick (Privately published, Rye, Sussex, 1992).
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Papers relating to Crick's service in the Western Desert, 1941-1943, as Instructor, War Intelligence Course, School of Military Intelligence, Matlock, Derbyshire, 1943-1944, and with Operational Intelligence, G2 Division, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF), 1944-1945, including copy of War Diary, General Staff Intelligence Branch, Headquarters 8 Army, 25 Sep-31 Oct 1941; typescript memorandum by Crick 'The possible effect of CROSSBOW on OVERLORD', on how Operation CROSSBOW, (Allied countermeasures against German V-weapons), could influence Operation OVERLORD, (the Allied invasion of occupied Europe), Mar 1944; typescript memorandum by Crick 'The heart of Germany', on the importance of the Ruhr industrial region to Allied strategy, Mar 1944; typescript report by Crick on visit to OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the German Armed Forces High Command), Flensburg, Germany, 11 May 1945. Papers relating to Crick's service with the British Joint Services Mission, Washington DC, USA, 1953-1956, including typescript text of lecture by Maj Gen Sir Kenneth William Dobson Strong, Director of Joint Intelligence Bureau, on UK and US Intelligence collaboration and spheres of influence [1953]; typescript memorandum 'Probable Bloc preoccupations in Asia, including Middle East, until mid 1955' [1953]; papers relating to the reorganisation of the Economic and General Division of the Joint Intelligence Bureau, 1956. Papers relating to the Imperial Defence College tour of Pakistan, India, East Pakistan, Ceylon and Aden, Aug-Sep 1960, including itineraries, travel arrangements, three photographs, invitations and a printed map of the Middle East showing oil wells, refineries and pipelines, 1960. Manuscript and typescript notes for a lecture by Crick entitled 'A career in Intelligence', given at Intelligence Corps course, with one audio tape of 20 minute lecture by Crick on interrogation techniques, Ashford College, Kent, Oct 1984. Edition of In the caves of the mind. Poems by Alan Crick (Privately published, Rye, Sussex, 1992). Newspaper cuttings, photographs and publications, 1938-1959, including German newspaper cuttings relating to the visit to Danzig by Rt Hon Alfred Duff Cooper, First Lord of the Admiralty, Aug 1938; three editions of Battledress. The Cadet magazine, Feb-Jun 1940; nine editions of The Crusader Eighth Army Weekly, Oct 1942-Apr 1943; sixteen editions of 'Interim. British Army of the Rhine Intelligence Review', Jun 1945-Apr 1946; three editions of 'Occupation. British Army of the Rhine Intelligence Review', May-Jul 1946. Edition of '21st (British) Army Group in the campaign in North West Europe 1944-1945. Lecture by Field Marshal Sir Bernard L Montgomery to the Royal United Service Institution, London, October 1945'; six photographs and five copies of photographs of Crick, Western Desert and Germany, 1941-1945, and two group photographs, Staff and Students, Joint Services Staff College, 1948, and Military Attachés Conference, Episkopi, Cyprus, 1959.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English, some German
System of arrangement:
The collection is arranged in sections as outlined above.
Conditions governing access:
Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, attention of the Director of Archive Services.
Physical characteristics:
Finding aids:
Summary guide available on-line at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/top.htm, and in hard copy in the Centre's reading room.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Placed in the Centre by the family in 1997.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Existence and location of copies:
Related material:
Publication note:
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Note:
Decorations: OBE
Date(s) of descriptions: Jun 1999