Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Ritchie
Royal Canadian Regiment

I do hope that this miserable Canadian conscription business will not affect your fighting strength … the fighting on all our fronts looks pretty sticky just now … I have called you Jim because I feel that your father would wish it and because I have called practically every C.O. by their Christian name since I left the Regiment.

(Col. C.H. Hill to Ritchie, 4 Dec 1944)

Born in Toronto on 8 July 1908, James Weldon Ritchie was commissioned with the RCR in 1935 and served on the Royal Military College staff. After going overseas in 1941, he attended the War Staff College at Camberley, England and joined the Staff Officers Training School. Promoted to lieutenant-colonel in August 1943, he received an opportunity for frontline command in Italy when he replaced Lieutenant-Colonel W.W. Mathers of the RCR in June 1944.

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