About Neil Ritchie
General Sir Neil Methuen Ritchie, (29 July 1897 – 11 December 1983) was a British Army officer who served in the First and Second World Wars. During the Second World War he commanded the British Eighth Army in the North African campaign from November 1941 until he was dismissed in June 1942 after a disastrous defeat in the Battle of Gazala. A 1914 graduate of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Ritchie was commissioned into the Black Watch (Royal Highlanders). During the First World War he served on the Western Front, in the Mesopotamian campaign, where he was appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order, and in the Sinai and Palestine campaign, where he was awarded the Military Cross. Between the wars he participated in the Occupation of the Rhineland, attended the Staff College, Camberley, and commanded a battalion in Palestine during the Arab revolt. During the Second World War he served with the British Expeditionary Force in the Battle of France in 1940 as the Brigadier General Staff of II Corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Alan Brooke. Although Ritchie's career looked finished after Gazala, he was given command of XII Corps, which he led throughout the campaign in North West Europe, from June 1944 until Victory in Europe Day in May 1945. After the war he was given the Scottish Command and was Governor of Edinburgh Castle from 1945 to 1947. He commanded Far East Land Forces from 1947 to 1949 and led the Joint Services Mission in Washington, DC, from 1949 until his retirement in 1951. Afterwards he emigrated to Canada, where he pursued a career in business. After the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Ritchie passed out from Sandhurst on 16 December and was, at the age of 17, commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Black Watch (Royal Highlanders). During the First World War he served on the Western Front, in the Mesopotamian campaign, where he earned the Distinguished Service Order and in the Sinai and Palestine campaign, where he was awarded the Military Cross.
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