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World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
Capt. Colin Campbell Mitchell MC.
British Army 10th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
from:Lochgilphead
From Lt Col Colin Mitchell's Autobiography "Having Been a Soldier" who was the son of Colin Mitchell mentioned below:
"When the First World War broke out he (Colin Mitchell) joined up, like most of his generation, and enlisting in Glasgow was sworn in as a private in the Highland Light Infantry. He used to tell me when I was a boy that when they mustered at Maryhill Barracks there were no uniforms and no rifles, so they were issued with Glasgow Corporation tram conductor's uniforms and armed with broomsticks. He also used to joke that the British Army promoted by size and this happened to him. Anyway, he was promoted and went home to Lochgilphead on his first leave as Sergeant. In the village street he met the local laird, Malcolm of Poltalloch, who said, "You should be an officer in our own county regiment, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. In 1915, my father was commissioned in the Regiment and later joined the 10th Battalion in France, part of Ian Hay's immortal "First Hundred Thousand".
While convalescing from his wounds with the 3rd Argylls at Kinsale in Southern Ireland, he had met my mother and they were married when the war ended.
Like all small boys born within ten years of the First World War, the thought of it was constantly with me and I was always asking my father to tell me what had happened and about his own adventures. He was always reticent. Probably he was so amazed and thankful to have survived that he just did not want to be reminded of it. I knew that he had fought in most of the big battles and had been wounded three times and, on the last occasion in 1918, had been hit and gassed so badly that he never returned to France. I knew also that he had won the Military Cross at the Battle of Ypres but, when I asked him how, he would only say "Oh, shooting rabbits". But my mother showed me the citation, and I still treasure the gold watch chain that was presented to him by the people of Lochgilphead, for he was their local boy who had achieved distinction.
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