While his father was stationed in Mauritius, his mother and the two children lived in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and he became fluent in French.

[2] His early education was at St Ronan's School,[3][4] and when he left in 1922 he was awarded a scholarship to Wellington College, Berkshire.

[12] The unit's annual training program included the construction of a permanent structure; Richardson chose to build a cantilevered cliff gallery roads to improve the track from Drosh to Lowari Pass.

[14] Richardson returned to the United Kingdom in 1938, and became the assistant adjutant of the Royal Engineers training battalion at Chatham.

[15]After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, he became the adjutant of the I Corps Troops Engineers, a Territorial Army formation from Manchester and Liverpool consisting of three field companies and a field park company that was assigned to the British Expeditionary Force in France.

He arrived at his destination, the Staff College, Haifa, in Palestine, where Dorman-Smith was the commandant and Freddie de Guingand was the chief instructor.

"[21] A fundamental problem was that MI6, whose role was intelligence collection, wanted to conduct its business quietly, whereas SOE, engaged in sabotage, welcomed publicity, as it encouraged the resistance.

Long range aircraft were required to reach Greece and Yugoslavia, but when three Consolidated B-24 Liberators were allocated for the task, the RAF lost them all when it diverted them to participate in an air raid on Benghazi.

Richardson conducted one covert operation himself, travelling to Turkey in civilian clothes to deliver three radio sets to British agents.

To convince the Germans and Italians that the attack would be in the south instead of the north, logistical activity, such as the placement of dumps and refuelling points, was faked, over two hundred dummy tanks, vehicles and guns were emplaced, and there was even a fake water pipeline constructed from non-returnable 4-gallon flimsy petrol tins.

[29] On 7 November, Mainwaring and Carver, his GSO2, were captured by a German rearguard while reconnoitring a new location for Eighth Army HQ, and Richardson succeeded him as GSO1 (Operations).

[30][31] On 15 April 1943, Montgomery sent de Guingand to Cairo to take charge of the planning for the Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, and Richardson succeeded him as BGS, with the rank of brigadier.

[35] Richardson had reservations about Clark's fitness to command, but he soon came to appreciate the talent of his chief of staff, Major General Alfred Gruenther.

[36] In the Battle of Salerno, the critical situation raised memories of Dunkirk, and Richardson prepared contingency plans for an evacuation, which were not needed.

[41] The appreciation it drew up before D-Day highlighted the tactical importance of the Normandy bocage country and the likelihood that the advance would be slower than forecast.

[40] Shortly before D-Day, he was given the additional assignment of liaison with the Allied Air Forces, which he performed during the first weeks of the campaign in Normandy.

[43] For his services in North West Europe, he was twice mentioned in despatches and advanced to Commander in the Order of the British Empire.

[48] A ruptured Achilles tendon ended his tenure in Berlin, and after a prolonged stay in hospital he joined Rear-Admiral Charles Lambe and Air Vice Marshal Edmund Hudleston in writing British Strategy 1946–61, a forecast of size and shape of the defence forces in the quarter century to come, taking into account anticipated advances in technology, particularly nuclear weapons.

[1] He reverted to his substantive rank of lieutenant-colonel to command an engineer regiment in the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) from 1947 to 1948.

[50] The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir John Harding, told him that his assignment was "to make science fashionable in the army".

He wrote three books: an autobiography, Flashback (1985); a biography of de Guingand, Send for Freddie (1987); and one of Ian Jacob, From Churchill's Secret Circle to the B.B.C.

[1] His banner as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath hangs in St Michael's Church in Betchworth.