Language selection


Search veterans.gc.ca

Canadian Virtual War Memorial

Thomas James Ritchie

In memory of:

Pilot Officer Thomas James Ritchie

April 22, 1943

Military Service


Service Number:

J/24649

Age:

23

Force:

Air Force

Unit:

Royal Canadian Air Force

Additional Information


Born:

February 25, 1920
Toronto, Ontario

Enlistment:

July 24, 1941
Hamilton, Ontario

Son of Thomas Thomson and Elizabeth Mary (nee McLeod) Ritchie, of Toronto, Ontario.

Commemorated on Page 207 of the Second World War Book of Remembrance. Request a copy of this page. Download high resolution copy of this page.

Burial Information


Cemetery:

OTTAWA MEMORIAL
Ontario, Canada

Grave Reference:

Panel 2. Column 4.

Location:

The Ottawa Memorial stands on the north-eastern point of Green Island in the City of Ottawa. Overlooking the northern branch of the Twin Falls of the Rideau River, it commands a panoramic view of the Ottawa River and the Gatineau Hills beyond. The Memorial commemorates those of the Air Forces of the British Commonwealth who lost their lives while serving in units operating from bases in Canada, the British West Indies and the United States of America, or while training in Canada and the U.S.A., and who have no known graves. The main feature of the Ottawa Memorial is a sculptured terrestrial globe in bronze, 3 metres in diameter, on a base formed by three bronze beavers rising from the centre of an ornamental pool. The globe, of open lattice-work corresponding to the lines of latitude and longitude, on which the land masses are super imposed in low relief, is crowned by the Air Forces emblem of a bronze eagle with outspread wings. Two curved screen walls faced in limestone, bearing cast bronze panels on which the names appear, face inwards towards the globe. They are placed slightly off centre to allow a clear view through the Ottawa Memorial from the central steps on Sussex Drive and from the wide pathway. Two Air Force crest exist in the paving between the screen walls. A dedicatory inscription, in English on one screen wall and in French on the other, is incised in the stonework between the bronze name panels, which reads as follows:
1939 - 1945
In honoured memory of the men and women of the air forces of the British Commonwealth and Empire who gave their lives in Canada, in the United States of America and neighbouring lands and who have no known grave.

Information courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Digital Collection

Send us your images

  • Newspaper Clipping– Memorialized on the pages of the Globe and Mail. Submitted for the project, Operation Picture Me
  • Newspaper Clipping– Memorialized on the pages of the Globe and Mail. Submitted for the project, Operation Picture Me
  • Photo of THOMAS JAMES RITCHIE– In memory of the students from the Vaughan Road Collegiate Institute  (Toronto) who went away to war and did not come home. Submitted for the project, Operation Picture Me
  • Memorial– In memory of the students from the Vaughan Road Collegiate Institute  (Toronto) who went away to war and did not come home. Submitted for the project, Operation Picture Me
  • Memorial– In memory of the students from the Vaughan Road Collegiate Institute  (Toronto) who went away to war and did not come home. Submitted for the project, Operation Picture Me
  • Badge– In memory of the students from the Vaughan Road Collegiate Institute  (Toronto) who went away to war and did not come home. Submitted for the project, Operation Picture Me
  • Book of Remembrance– In memory of the students from the Vaughan Road Collegiate Institute  (Toronto) who went away to war and did not come home. Submitted for the project, Operation Picture Me
  • Roll of Honour– In memory of the students from the Vaughan Road Collegiate Institute  (Toronto) who went away to war and did not come home. Submitted for the project, Operation Picture Me
  • Newspaper clipping– From the Toronto Star May 1943. Submitted for the project Operation Picture  Me
  • Newspaper clipping– From the Toronto Telegram May 1943. Submitted for the project Operation Picture Me
  • Newspaper clipping– From the Toronto Telegram February 1944. Submitted for the project Operation Picture Me
  • Memorial– Ottawa Memorial … In honoured memory of the men and women of the Air Forces of the British Commonwealth and Empire who gave their lives in Canada, in the United States of America and in neighbouring lands and seas and who  have no known grave. Photo courtesy of Marg Liessens October 2023.
  • Memorial– Pilot Officer Thomas James Ritchie as commemorated on the Ottawa Memorial, Ottawa, ON. Photo courtesy of Marg Liessens October 2023.
  • Inscription– Pilot Officer THOMAS JAMES RITCHIE is commemorated on this panel of the Ottawa Memorial. He is one of 37 members of the RCAF who were lost at sea when the ship Amerika, which was bringing them to England to take part in European operations, was torpedoed and sunk by the German Submarine U-306 south of Cape Farewell, Greenland in the early hours of the morning of April 22,1943.  Of the twenty Pilot Officers  who are commemorated on this panel, eight others, A. H. Pearson, G.W. Pidduck, J.N. Rombough, W.A.D. Scott, W.O. Black, John Tyler, J.H. Warren and K.B.Woods also lost their lives when the Amerika was sunk.
  • Dedicatory Inscription at the Ottawa Memorial
  • The Ottawa Memorial
  • Newspaper Clipping– Pilot Officer THOMAS JAMES RITCHIE was listed as 'missing as a result of enemy action at sea' in the 570th  R.C.A.F. casualty list of the war, released on May 8, 1943 and published in the Globe and Mail on May 10, 1943.  The article, published 19 days after the actual event, speculates on what happened, as no further details were made available at the time.  It is now known that the men were lost at sea when the ship Amerika, which was bringing them to England to take part in European operations was torpedoed and sunk by the German Submarine U-306, south of Cape Farewell, Greenland in the early hours of the morning of April 22, 1943.  42 of the ship¿s crew and and seven gunners were also lost at sea.  30 crew members, eight gunners and 16 R.C.A.F Officers survived and were picked up by HMS Asphodel and landed at Greenock, Scotland.
  • Newspaper Clipping– Part 2 of list of RCAF Officers 'missing as a result of enemy action at sea' in the 570th  R.C.A.F. casualty list of the war published in the Globe and Mail on May 10, 1943.
  • Newspaper Clipping– Pilot Officer THOMAS JAMES RITCHIE was listed among the R.C.A.F personnel recently commissioned in Canada in this clipping published in the Globe and Mail on May 6, 1943, thirteen days after he was lost at sea.   Others on this list who perished along with Thomas James Ritchie are Terence William Kidd, John Borum, Stanley William Dean, Benjamin Gordon Fife, Warren Oliver Slack, John Noble Rombough, and Frederick Bennett Keys.
  • Amerika– Photograph of the Amerika.  The ship departed Halifax on April 14,1943 bound for Liverpool, England as part of convey HX-234, and was torpedoed and sunk by the German Submarine U-306 south of Cape Farewell, Greenland at 01.54 hours on April 22, 1943.  Pilot Officer THOMAS JAMES RITCHIE and 36 other members of the RCAF perished.  42 of the ship¿s crew and and seven gunners also perished.  30 crew members, eight gunners and 16 RCAF Officers survived and were picked up by HMS Asphodel and landed at Greenock, Scotland.  U-306 met the same fate six months later when it was sunk on October 31, 1943 in the North Atlantic north-east of the Azores by depth charges from the British destroyer HMS Whitehall and the British corvette HMS Geranium and all of the crew of 51 perished.  (Source: Uboat.net)

Learn more about the Canadian Virtual War Memorial

To learn more please visit our help page. If you have questions or comments regarding the information contained in this registry, email or call us. For inquiries regarding the names and information found in the RCMP Honour Roll, please email the RCMP.

Date modified: