General Richard O’Connor of Rosemarkie —A hero of two world wars

Roger Young

Victoria Hall, Cromarty

General O’Connor had a distinguished military career in both WW1 and WW2 and also between the wars. His wife was part of the Ross family of Cromarty House. He is buried in the St Regulus burial ground next to her. O’Connor lived in Rosemarkie after WW2 and during that time was appointed Lord Lieutenant for Ross and Cromarty and Lord High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland. The talk focuses on O’Connor’s overwhelming success against a much larger Italian Army in North Africa in 1940‐41, his accidental capture by the Germans close to the beginning of Rommel’s campaign in 1941, his escape from imprisonment in Italy on his third attempt and his contributions to the gruelling British campaign against the Germans in Normandy and beyond in 1944. An overview will be given of the rest of O’Connor’s life.

Roger Young was born in 1949. He grew up with a father who served in WW2 in the British Army in North Africa and Italy. His father was of the opinion that a defect of the British Army at that time was a shortage of good officers. Since then Roger has had an interest in this topic. He studied philosophy at Oxford and spent his working life teaching philosophy at the University of Dundee. One of the courses he taught was “Philosophy of Peace and War”

Cromarty History Society now meets on the the third Tuesday of each month, September - April