Lest We Forget: Into Normandy on the battlefields
Then, the war hero – who still has metal from exploded bomb parts stuck in his shoulder to this day – was a dashing 20-year-old lieutenant.
In 1942, Major Mitchell had joined the 6th Battalion of the North Staffordshire Regiment out of respect for his father, Joseph Henry, who won the Military Medal for his service during the First World War.
He was stationed in Margate when he first heard on the radio that the Allied invasion of Normandy had started. Just a couple of days later, he found himself on a Dutch ship headed for France.
Major Mitchell, who celebrates his 85th birthday just after Remembrance Sunday, on November 20, said: “A and B companies of the 6th North Staffords were equipped with push bikes.
“We had to get off our ship, onto the landing craft, then onto the shore, all carrying our bikes.
“Fortunately, we all arrived ashore without even getting our feet wet.
“Only one lad buckled his wheel, and he had to stay with C company, who were on foot. We pushed our bikes up through the sand dunes, through the taped area where the mines were on either side, and onto the road. We then cycled of into Normandy. It was quite a sight to see.”
Major Mitchell was badly injured during the Battle of Caen, in July 1944, when he and his troops came under heavy artillery and mortar fire.
He said: “I dived into this trench and remember landing directly on top of a German. Fortunately he was dead and I scrambled off a bit further down this trench and came across another German, who was also dead.
“The artillery and mortar fire then began to subside, so I got out of the trench. I managed then to collect three more of my platoon.
“Then a mortar bomb dropped very near to us. I remember going right up into the air and coming back down again. As I came down I first noticed that both my feet were still on – because I’d found one of my lads the previous day and he’d had both of his feet blown off by a mortar bomb.
“I noticed a very sharp pain in my side and it ultimately transpired that I’d got shrapnel in my back, two broken ribs and shrapnel in part of my chest.
“The other soldier that I was with, he’d got a piece of shrapnel in his neck and blood shot straight out at a 90 degree angle. But we managed to stem the bleeding on that.
“On of the soldiers was killed outright. But the other wasn’t hit at all. I dispatched him to get hold of the army medical corps people.
“Within a matter of a few hours, I was taken to an airfield, put on a plane and flown back to the UK.”
His wounds meant he was transferred away from front-line action, to work with prisoners of war, first in Northern Ireland, then commanding 3,000 German prisoners at a camp at Bury St Edmunds.
Major Mitchell, of Tittensor, worked as an accountant after the war and married Eunice, aged 87, in 1952. They had one daughter, Rosemary Edwards, who married Lieutenant Colonel John Edwards, a serving soldier with the Staffords.
Today Major Mitchell does a lot of work with Newcastle Normandy Veterans’ Association, visiting schools and telling children about his experiences during the war. He as even awarded the French Legion of Honour medal for his work in that field.
He still carries the pieces of shrapnel in his left shoulder as a permanent reminder of his efforts in the war.
“I can’t go through security scanners at airports,” he said.
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