Neil Ritchie

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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...

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