A graduate of the University of Sydney, Richards became Regimental Medical Officer of the &lt;a href="2/15th%20Field%20Regiment%20%28Australia%29"&gt;2/15th Field Regiment&lt;/a&gt; in 1940. When Singapore fell on 15 February 1942, he became a prisoner of the Japanese. In September 1944, the transport on which he was being shipped to Japan was attacked and sunk by US submarines. He spent three days on a raft before he was picked up by a Japanese warship, and spent the rest of the war in Sakuta in Japan.