Education
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
Educated at Charterhouse School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Richard Craddock was commissioned into the Royal East Kent Regiment (Buffs) in 1930. In 1944 he became Commanding Officer of the 2nd Battalion, South Wales Borderers, fighting in North West Europe, in which capacity he earned a Defence Science Organisation, before moving on to be Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, which was also serving in North West Europe, later that year. He was wounded in action several times, losing one foot and part of a legal
After the War he remained in the Army and in 1949 became Military Assistant to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, moving on to a posting as Director of Plans at the War Office in 1951.
He was appointed Major General in charge of Administration for the British Army of the Rhine (British Army of the Rhine) in West Germany in 1957 and became Director of Military Operations at the War Office in 1959. He served as Commander of British Forces in Hong Kong from 1963 to 1964, when he became GOC Western Command.
He retired in 1966.
He served in the Second World War, initially in the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the Battle of France. In 1943 he was a member of the Prime Minister Winston Churchill"s delegation to Washington, District of Columbia, Quebec, and Cairo.