Colonel Peter Mitchell OBE

Colonel Peter Anthony Mitchell OBE

Peter was born in 1932 and was educated at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire. He passed the Regular Commissions Board in 1950 and commenced his Army training with the Rifle Brigade in Winchester, before moving to RMA Sandhurst. After passing out in 1952 and completing Young Officer training at Hythe and Warminster, he joined the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment having been a cadet at Ampleforth.

In early January 1953, Peter boarded the troopship Empire Fowey at Southampton, with a number of brother officers also joining the Battalion and passed through Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said, Aden, Colombo, Singapore and then Hong Kong, before finally arriving at the Rear Base for the Commonwealth Division in Korea.

The new arrivals immediately went up into the hills to a ‘robust and dangerous’ battle indoctrination camp, which Peter said, ‘achieved the objective of getting us ready for the battles ahead’. Peter then joined the Battalion when it was still in reserve along with the rest of the Division.

Peter was posted to Corunna Company, commanded by Barry Kavanagh. As no platoon was available, Peter was given the task of patrolling in the relatively wide ‘no man’s land’ in front of the Company’s positions. His endeavours here were recognised in AJ Barker’s account of the Battle of the Hook, ‘Fortune Favours the Brave’, when his patrol’s contact with a twenty strong Chinese patrol provided early alert to the Battalion.

Peter’s account of the battle, then with 9 Platoon, provides a view of the intensity of the artillery barrages and incessant waves of Chinese attacks, resulting in a scene of utter devastation. Eventually relieved by the Royal Fusiliers, the Battalion went into reserve but sent parties forward to clear up the positions. Peter recounts setting up camp below Gloster Hill, overlooking the Imjin Rover, playing cricket against the Australian Brigade and generally beginning the process of decompression.

Sports in general, but in particular cricket, played a central role in Peter’s life. A talented bowler, he played at all levels, up to an including playing for the Army and then for Berkshire. In one match versus the RAF, he bowled Tony Lewis (later of Cambridge, Glamorgan and England) for a duck!

Following Korea, Peter was posted to Gibraltar with the Battalion, and commanded the Anti-Tank Platoon, where he found himself responsible for 16 guns emplaced within the North Face of the Rock. Despite this, there appeared to be a lot of time for an active Mess life for the subalterns in Gibraltar, which I’m sure Peter enjoyed. It was also at this time that he took leave in the U.K. and met his future wife Diana, who he was happily married to for 65 years.

The Battalion returned to the UK in 1955, however shortly after, the Suez crisis erupted and he flew out to Malta with the Battalion. His Anti-Tank Platoon was attached to 45 Commando and conducted amphibious training for proposed landings in Alexandria, which subsequently never occurred. Peter rejoined the Battalion as it moved to Cyprus to help deal with the Eoka emergency, and conducted their first taste of Internal Security work. Peter recounts that over the next year, he carried out a number of operations, mainly in the Troodos mountains, aimed at eliminating Grivas and his gangs.

From here, the Battalion and Peter sailed back to the UK for his first posting to Northern Ireland, a place he would return to in 1973, when he commanded the Battalion in Ballykelly. Following this peaceful initial tour to Northern Ireland, Peter was posted to take up an Officer Training role, initially at Eaton Hall OCS and then Mons OCS in Aldershot. He thoroughly enjoyed instructing Officer cadets, a particular memory being training a young Michael Heseltine, who he remembered as being ‘intelligent, determined and ambitious’.

After an enjoyable post to HQ Aldershot District as a staff captain, then major, Peter was selected for Staff College, where he seemed to play a lot of sport! He returned to the Battalion as OC B Company in Osnabruck before a posting to The Hague as the Assistant Military Attache. Peter returned to the Battalion in mid-1968, again as OC B Company and then as the Battalion Second-in-Command. It was from his subsequent role with the Infantry Trials and Development unit in Warminster, that Peter went on to command the Battalion.

His time in Command was extremely busy and focused on the posting to Londonderry, where the Battalion was spread out over the north of the province, in Bridge Camp (Toomebridge), Brandywell, Magherafelt, Kilrea, Maghera, Dungiven, North Antrim and Larne. Peter recalled this as a ‘murky time’, where intelligence was key to the successful prevention of attacks and apprehending members of the IRA. In particular the disruption of the opposition by a series of operations, including a number of helicopter borne landings resulted in success.

After the Battalion moved back to Mons Barracks, Aldershot, Peter went on to work for the Military Secretary in Stanmore. Promoted to Colonel, Peter then worked on the Mechanised Infantry Combat Vehicle (MICV) project in a technical role, which he thoroughly enjoyed, before taking up the role as the Military Attache to Israel, in Tel Aviv in 1983. This was a time of great tension in Israel and the Middle East and at one point Peter was arrested on the Israel/Lebanon border!

Leaving the Army in 1986, Peter and Diana settled in Hampshire where they lived very happily. Peter worked for the Army Security Vetting Unit (ASVU) until 1997 and then spent 18 months working for the 8th Duke of Wellington as his Comptroller at Stratfield Saye. Peter spent much of his retirement perfecting his golf swing and he captained the Hankley Common club in 1995, remaining physically and mentally active up to the short illness which sadly took him from us in January this year.

Peter will be missed by all his family and many friends, but in particular by Diana, Charles, his son, Kate, his daughter, and his grandchildren, Emily, Matilda, Patrick, Christian and Eve.

You can read Peter Mitchell’s Memoirs from his time as CO here:-  https://www.dwr.org.uk/museum/commanding-officers-service-memories/1973-75-lt-col-p-mitchell/