Colin Mitchell

He was badly gassed in 1918.

After the war, he worked in the City of London and married a Glaswegian woman (née Gilmour) whose father worked as a manager for the LMS Railway company.

The couple took up residence in the South London suburb of Purley where they had two children – Colin and Henrietta.

The family lived in a modest semi-detached house and Colin would attend services at the local Presbyterian Church wearing a kilt.

Mitchell received his formal education at the Whitgift Grammar School in Croydon.

Colin Campbell Mitchell (17 November 1925 – 20 July 1996) was a British Army soldier and politician.

One of his fellow instructors was Stan Cullis who had been the captain of the Wolverhampton Wanderers cup side at Wembley in 1939 and was the captain of England at the time.

In 1940, at age 15, Mitchell enlisted in the Home Guard, and may have been the youngest Home Guard soldier.

In May 1943 he joined the British Army, enlisting as a private in the Royal West Kent Regiment.

He soon became a Lance-Corporal and instructed newcomers in physical training.

Mitchell was commissioned into the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in 1944.

He fought in the final battles of the Italian campaign, and was lightly wounded in the advance on Ferrara.

Despite this, his wartime experience inclined him to take up a military career.

He was appointed to a regular commission on 21 December 1946.

Following the war, he saw action against Jewish guerrillas during the Palestine Emergency.

While in Palestine, he participated in operations to arrest Jewish militants.

During Operation Agatha, which saw most of the Jewish political leadership in Palestine detained, Mitchell's mission was to arrest Moshe Shertok (a future Prime Minister of Israel).

Initially, his unit raided the wrong house.

However, they were later able to find and arrest him.

In July 1946, he witnessed the King David Hotel bombing: he and his company commander were within 300 feet of the building when the bombing occurred.

While on a personal reconnaissance mission, he was shot and wounded by one of his own Bren gunners, who mistook him for a guerrilla.

After recovering from his injuries, he was transferred from his regiment to become aide-de-camp to General Gordon MacMillan, the commander of British forces in Palestine and Transjordan.

He spent a total of three years in Palestine.

While there, he made friends among both the Arabs and Jews, including Moshe Dayan, a future Israeli general who would become one of Mitchell's heroes, as well as future Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, then named Moshe Shertok, who developed a cordial relationship with Mitchell after his arrest and corresponded with him for years afterward, when he became a senior Israeli government official.

In 1950, with the outbreak of the Korean War, he was allowed to rejoin his regiment so he could deploy to Korea.

He participated in the initial advance into North Korea, seeing close-quarters combat along the way.

His regiment ultimately reached Taechon, near the Chinese border on the Yalu River.

When the Chinese Army intervened and crossed the Yalu River in overwhelming numbers, the regiment was forced to take part in the retreat of UN forces, and later helped hold the line against Communist forces when UN forces consolidated.

The regiment held a position known as "Frostbite Ridge", where they had to endure freezing conditions.

They held the area through the winter until the thaw, and in 1951, they began to advance.

However, shortly afterward, they were relieved and withdrawn.

He became a public figure in 1967 as the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

Forces under his command reoccupied the Crater district of Aden which had been taken over by local police mutineers in what became known as "the last battle of the British empire".

The reoccupation and subsequent control of the Crater were controversial and Mitchell resigned his army commission in 1968.

Subsequently, he became a Conservative Member of Parliament and served one term from 1970 to February 1974.

After participation in a failed business venture he subsequently worked as a security and military consultant.

In 1989 Mitchell took a leading role in the Halo Trust, a not-for-profit organisation undertaking mine clearance in former war zones.

Mitchell's father (also called Colin) came from an Argyllshire fishing family.

Mitchell (Snr) worked in a solicitor's office and for the MacBrayne ferry company before serving in the 10th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in World War I.

Mitchell (Snr) achieved the rank of captain (commissioned 'in the field') and was awarded the Military Cross at the Second Battle of Ypres, but when the young Colin asked him how he would only say, 'Oh, shooting rabbits'.