This page is dedicated to a man I never met. Lt Samual Ritchie died on 25th March 1945 while serving with the 7th Battalion The Seaforth Highlanders.

My father remembers him coming home on leave, resplendent in his uniform and bringing presents of cap badges etc. He also remembers that Sam’s mother  never recovered from his death and dedicated the remainder of her life to the Royal British Legion.

While I have always been aware of Sam as a relative I never met, it was only recently when I came into possession of a letter written by Sam’s company commander and some other documents, that I decided that it was time to dedicate one small corner of the internet to a man I never met, but whose sacrifice has enabled me and others like me to enjoy a life we might otherwise never have know.

I am publishing a scan of the letter and a scan of a card I am led to believe that the families of every serviceman lost received.  I hope later to publish more details of Sam’s service and a picture of him

Please click on the pics to get bigger versions..

The letter has not withstood the intervening years well, so I have posted my attempt at a transcription below.

From

Captain D.A.W. Lochhead

7th Bn. The Seaforth Highlanders

S.L.A.

Dear Mrs Ritchie

It is with my very deepest regret that I have to inform you of the death in action of your very dear son Sam, or Paddy as he was so well known to us all, on the evening of the 25th March 1945, and I should like to convey to yourself and your family, on behalf of my company and myself, our heart felt sympathy in this very sad loss which you good people have sustained.

I had not know Paddy long, having only returned to rejoin the battalion a few weeks ago, after being wounded in Normandy, but I can very truthfully say that even in those very short weeks from what I saw him do in battle and in his every day routine work, he was one of the finest and most courageous officers I ever had the privilege of having under me in my Company.

His death has been a severe blow to myself personally, in that I have lost such a gallant a good and trusty friend, just at a time when we were getting to know each other so well.

The men of his platoon particularly ask me to send to you their sympathies, which in itself speaks for his popularity among them, as it was too with the whole of the Company, to which I know he devoted his heart and soul from the day he joined the battalion.

The circumstances of how Paddy met his death, because I know you would wish to know, were during a severe Counter-attack which we sustained during that evening.  I regret to say that I have no one now in the company we witnessed it, but when his body together with that of his Platoon sergeant were recovered later that evening, it was fairly obvious that neither suffered any pain in their last moments, having been killed instantly by machine-gun fire, in the chest, which gives you the very little consolation that it can offer. The location of Paddy's grave is in the little village where the action took place, just on the East Bank of the Rhine, called MEHR.

If there is any further information you would like in respect of the location, or in regard to Paddy's personal kit, which has already... (unreadable in original document) ...I do not think there are any more particulars i can give you.

With my sincerest sympathy to yourself and family in this sad bereavement.

I am

Yours sincerely,

DAVID LOCHHEAD.

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