Lieutenant James Arthur Riccomini MBE MC, Royal Army Service Corps and the Special Air Service, 1944 (c)

Photograph, World War Two, Italy (1943-1945), 1944 (c).

Riccomini joined the Royal Army Service Corps in 1940 where he served with No. 5 Line of Communication Railhead Motor Transport Company. He worked on convoy duty and reconnaissance operations in Palestine and Iraq and with 266 Company in North Africa. After being taken prisoner and then escaping he joined up with the Special Air Service (SAS).

Riccomini took part in two operations with the SAS - Operation Galia in 1944 and Operation Tombola in 1945, both in northern Italy.

During an assault on German military headquarters on Operation Tombola, Riccomini led part of a three pronged attack, his target being a German billet at Villa Rossi. Before his team reached it, an attack on one of the other targets began, which alerted the German defences. Riccomini's team rushed into the villa and amidst fierce fighting, he sustained a fatal head wound.

He is buried in a war cemetery in Milan.