Colin Campbell Mitchell

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

Mitchell schooled at Whitgift in Croydon, then enlisted in the Royal West Kent Regiment. He was commissioned into the Argylls in 1944 and served in the British Army in conflicts from Italy in 1945 to Palestine, Korea (where he commanded his first company), Cyprus, Borneo and the Aden Emergency.

He was wounded in Italy and again later in Palestine.

Mitchell gained administrative experience at the highest level under two Chiefs of the Defence staff - Earl Mountbatten and Field Marshall Sir Richard Amyatt Hull.

He was made Officer Commanding 1st Battalion, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in 12 January 1967. He made his name in the Aden with the Argylls. He became known as "Mad Mitch" and was Mentioned in Dispatches. Mitchell led a force that reoccupied and held the town of Crater accompanied by 15 regimental bagpipers of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders playing 'Scotland the Brave'. The local police had mutinied and British soldiers from the Northumberland Fusiliers been killed and several prisoners mutilated.

Defence Minister Denis Healey saying of the Argylls in Crater: `I am assured that, although they were tough and spirited, they were also extremely well-led and disciplined.'

He resigned from the Army in September 1968 when the Argylls were disbanded.

He later went on to win a seat in the House of Commons at the 1970 general election as the Conservative MP for Aberdeenshire West. He stood down at the February 1974 election.

In his later years, Mitchell founded and was a trustee for the charity HALO Trust which is involved in clearing mines from former war zones such as Mozambique and Cambodia.