George Stephen Ritchie
Rear-Admiral George Stephen Ritchie CB DSC (30 October 1914 – 8 May 2012[1]) was a British admiral noted for his cartographic and hydrographic work and as an author of many publications on hydrography.
He decided to specialise in surveying after meeting Sir Frederick Learmonth, a former Hydrographer of the Navy who knew Ritchie's father through their work on the Board of the Port of London Authority.
Ritchie was next in charge of a flotilla of trawlers attempting to locate and "catch" one of the German magnetic mines dropped by parachute into the channel.
Franklin was next employed measuring the speeds of currents through the sounds into Scapa Flow in preparation for the building of the Churchill Barriers to defend the anchorage against U-boat attack.
After detours to Halfax and Rio de Janeiro, Ceramic arrived in Cape Town, where the couple were married, and had a few days together.
He and a colleague were then trained in the use of folding canvas canoes for carrying out clandestne beach surveys in preparation for tank landings.
In May they were using this method behind enemy lines near the Gulf of Bomba, where they were nearly captured by Italian soldiers, and later made their way to safety in a strong gale during the raid on Tobruk.
Working with both a truck and a boat, this unit followed close behind allied forces as they headed west across North Africa, surveying ports as they were taken.
The surveyors laid accurately positioned buoys to guide the sinking of blockships to form a breakwater, and then surveyed the resulting harbour.
[2]: 50–60 Hostilities in Europe ended in May 1945, but major work remained for the surveyors, clearing mines, locating, surveying and marking wrecks, and re-surveying the shifting banks off the English coasts that had been negelected during the war.
The Decca System, developed from the prototype used in Normandy, was being introduced, and Ritchie spent time in the East Anglian countryside locating Ordnance Survey marks so that the relays could be accurately positioned.
[4]: 230–231 In 1966 he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral and appointed to the post of Hydrographer of the Navy which he held for five years, responsible for the operations of the RN Surveying Squadron and the publication of the Admiralty Chart worldwide series.
[5] After his return from Monaco he lived with his wife, Disa, in the family house built by his grandfather in the fishing village of Collieston, Aberdeenshire.
His books include Challenger - The Life of a Survey Ship (1957), The Admiralty Chart (1967),[10] his autobiography, No Day too Long: An Hydrographer's Tale (1992)[2] and As it Was (2003).
