The younger of two brothers killed in the second half of the war, James had been brought up in Filey but resided in Surrey, where he worked.  However, when he was conscripted James made the journey north to rejoin his home county regiment of the Green Howards and at the end of his training was used as a reinforcement for the 1^st Battalion.

          He would have been with them when they landed on the beaches of Sicily in July 1943 and fought their way across the island in order to make the first move towards Italy which cost the lives of 25,000 British and U.S. troops alone.  On the night of 18^th January the Allies landed in Italy, on the Anzio beach head.  For the next three days they were stranded and put under incessant German artillery fire with many casualties being inflicted particularly by the anti personnel mines that surrounded them on all sides. 

          Over the next four months the Allies fought hard to keep the Anzio beach head and gradually pushed towards their final objective of Rome.  Their major problem arose from the mountain pass that was crowned by the Abbey of Monte Cassino; this pass had to be taken in order to press forward but the German Army had turned it into an impregnable fortress. 

          Another thorn in the Allies side was the River Molletta and it fell to the Green Howards to take this objective on the night of 23^rd May 1944.  Opposing them was the entire 4^th German Parachute Division who had many fortifications along the banks of the river. 

As the attack started the Green Howards charged across the open ground in front of the Germans only to find it an uncharted minefield filled with anti-personnel mines which cost the troops dearly.  For the survivors of this ordeal the attack began in earnest; the British caught the Germans ‘napping’ and managed to overrun their first 600 yards of positions.  They spent the night consolidating positions before the Germans counter-attacked the following morning using tanks and flame throwers; the Green Howards could not defend against this as they had no armaments (such as tanks) of their own.  Two full companies were lost but a third company held the line at the cost of 155 men including James Rickard.  The badly battered Green Howards were pulled back into reserve at this point and spent the next few weeks tending to their wounds.

This attack had diverted vital German infantry away from Monte Cassino and as a result the Allied forces finally broke the weakened fortress defences.  They entered Rome on 6^th June 1944.

James was buried in Anzio Beach Head Cemetery and was the son of Ernest and Mabel Rickard.