Ships
- HMS Newfoundland (59) Captain from 14 February 1944 · Relieved on 7 October 1945
Richard William Ravenhill commanded Newfoundland through her British Pacific Fleet commission. The naval-history chronology has him joining on 14 February 1944, at Boston, and leaving at Sydney on 7 October 1945. Uboat.net starts the command on 19 February 1944 and ends it about October 1945. The command line uses the chronology.
Uboat.net says he was born on 4 December 1901 at Scaftworth Hall, Bawtry, Yorkshire. The career note says the birth was registered at East Retford, Nottinghamshire. His parents were Harold William Ravenhill and Gwyneth M. Thomas. He was the nephew of John E. Gladstone. The page gives his death as 27 July 1978, aged 76, at Worthing, Sussex.
He was a sub-lieutenant from 15 May 1922, lieutenant from 15 April 1923, lieutenant-commander from 15 April 1931, commander from 30 June 1936, and captain from 30 June 1941. The page does not name a college or a first ship.
He commanded the destroyer Nubian from 31 October 1938 to 23 October 1941. On 31 August 1939 Nubian left Alexandria with ships of the Mediterranean Fleet for exercises. He was mentioned in despatches on 1 July 1941 and received the Distinguished Service Cross on 5 August 1941. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire on 8 June 1944, while he had Newfoundland. He was mentioned in despatches again on 11 June 1946.
He joined Newfoundland at the end of her Boston repair. He took her through the Clyde radar refit, the explosion in a port torpedo tube at Alexandria on 2 February 1945, the Wewak bombardments in May, Operation Inmate at Truk in June, and the British Pacific Fleet's operations off Japan in July and August 1945. Rear-Admiral E. J. P. Brind flew his flag in her in that last campaign. Ravenhill was still in command when she entered Tokyo Bay. The chronology says he left the ship at Sydney on 7 October 1945, when Captain Cecil Charles Acland Allen assumed command.
Nothing after the 1946 mention in despatches, and nothing between October 1945 and his death in 1978, was on the page that was fetched, beyond the death itself.