YOUNGEST SOLDIER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 158, 22 September 1941, Page 5

YOUNGEST SOLDIER

JOINED THE ARMY AT THIRTEEN!

RAN AWAY FROM HOME

Youngest soldier in the British Army is 14 year old William Mc-» Kinnon, of Westergreen Avenue, Kirkintilloch, Scotland.

He celebrated his 14th birthday recently as a private soldier in the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders. This is how he came to join the Army. Oil May 26 he failed to turn up at school, and his parents told the police he was missing.. Nothing was heard of him for a week..or two. Then a soldier from his home town told William's parents he had seen him in uniform.

William's father, Mr David Mc-»» Kinnon, visited the headquarters of his son's regiment and found his son had enlisted as a man and carried off the pose so well that the commanding officer of the regiment refused to believe that he was only a schoolboy.

He also' had succeeded in* passing! a medical examination by five doctors .

"I spoke to two of these doctors," 1 Mr McKinnon said,, "and I had difficulty in persuading them that Willie was only 13 years old."

Mr McKinnon, an ex-soldier, said that because his son had proved himself such a good soldier, able t<* take a man's share of Army work* including a three day's route march* he. would be allowed to remain ini the Army as a fully fledged soldiers instead of being transferred as a "boy" to the regimental band, or ox a cadet. • jO "If he wants to make the Army a career, I have nothing against it/* •• said Mr McKinnon. '/ Before his disappearance froirl school last May William signed on. as greaser in a ship bound for America, but was taken back to school. When he was nine years old hfc. ran away from home and left a note saying that he intended to cycle tc* London. & He was found three days later at Dunbar, 50 miles away from bi* home.