HARRISON, Maj Gen Desmond (1896-1984)

Papers relating to his work as Engineer-in-Chief, South East Asia Command, 1943-1946, dated 1943-1947, principally comprising official photographs showing construction work on roads, bridges and airstrips, 1943-1946; official photograph of Acting Adm Louis (Francis Albert Victor Nicholas) Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia and US Gen Lewis A Pick, [1945]; 'The construction of forward airfields in SEAC Areas', Engineer-in-Chief (India) Pamphlet No 12, prepared by Harrison and Maj Gen Horace Eckford Roome, Engineer-in-Chief, General HQ, India, 1945; 'Royal Engineers training memorandum No 20: rafting and bridging', pamphlet issued by the War Office, 1946; 'Memorandum on the training and employment of officers of the Royal Engineers and Indian Engineers in preparation for war', issued by General HQ, Delhi, 1945; letter from Harrison to AQ Plans, South East Asia Command relating to the building of the Ledo Road, Burma and India, Dec 1945; 'Major Engineer: lessons of the war in South East Asia Command', copy of unsigned typescript text, [1945]; pre-publication edition of Mountbatten's Report to Combined Chiefs of Staff by the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia, 1943-1946 (London, 1951), 1947; 'Annexure A', unsigned typescript text on Engineer organisation, South East Asia Command, 1943-1946, written in [1946] and later reworked and published as Annexure 6 of Mountbatten's Report to Combined Chiefs of Staff by Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia, 1943-1946 (London, 1951). Unsigned text of lecture to the Senior Officers' School on organisation and work of Royal Engineers, 31 Dec 1941.

Born in 1896; educated at Kilkenny College and Mountjoy School, Dublin, Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and Cambridge University; Commandant, School of Military Engineering, 1942-1943; Engineer-in-Chief, South East Asia Command, 1943-1946; Director of Fortifications and Works, War Office, 1946-1947; Maj Gen, 1947; retired from Army, 1947; Director, Overseas Food Corporation, 1947-1949; died in 1984.

1 box

Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.

Presented to the Centre by the family in 1984 and 1985.

Summary guide entry on-line at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iss/archives/cats/, and detailed catalogue available in hard copy in the Centre's reading room.

Royal Engineers Institution: papers relating to construction policy, South East Asia Command HQ, Kandy, Ceylon, 1945; 'Job analysis, RE' by Maj Gen Eustace Francis Tickell, Enginerr-in-Chief, South East Asia Command, 1947; typescript notes for a lecture on the engineering aspect of the war, [1946].

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.

The papers of Gen Hastings Lionel Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay, include published edition of Mountbatten's report to the Chiefs of Staff , dated 1951 (Ref GB 99 KCLMA Ismay 6/18)