Aircraftsman 2nd Class William Reekie MITCHELL (968374)
Headquarters British Air Forces in France, Royal Air Force

Date of birth: 26th July 1917
Date of death: 17th June 1940

Killed in action aged 22
Commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial Panel 27
William Reekie Mitchell was born at Clackmannan on the 26th of July 1917 and was the nephew of Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell of Cardow Cottages, Knockando.

On the 17th of June 1940 RMS Lancastria was anchored a few miles off the Loire estuary near the French port of St Nazaire where it was loading troops and other personnel as part of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force following the fall of France. At between 7am and 8am they embarked around 800 Royal Air Force personnel in the lower holds, numbers 1 and 2, the largest contingent taken aboard.

At 3.45pm a flight of Junkers 88 aircraft from Kampfgeschweder I/30 arrived overhead and commenced bombing the ship. She received three direct hits with one of the bombs hitting the holds containing the RAF men. A huge fire quickly took hold and she sank in just twenty minutes.

The full extent of the casualties is not known, with estimates of the dead running between 2,500 and 6,000. It was one of the war’s greatest maritime disasters. The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, insisted that the news be kept from the public.

Knockando

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