Statue for WW2 commandos killed in Highland training

A sculpture designed by the artist behind Scotland's famous Commando Memorial is to be cast and dedicated to 27 men killed in training in the Highlands during World War Two.

Scott Sutherland's Leaping Salmon is described as his "lost statue" because the original was vandalised soon after being installed in Perth in the 1970s, and was never replaced.

One of the Caithness-born sculptor's students, Alan Beattie Herriot, is to be commissioned to remake the statue.

It is to be unveiled next year overlooking a war-time commando training camp at Achnacarry, a few miles from the Commando Memorial.

The castle and land at Achnacarry, the ancestral home of the chiefs of Clan Cameron of Lochiel, was crucial to Allied forces' campaigns against the Axis powers during WW2.

The area, about 15 miles north east of Fort William, was used to train elite commandos from Britain and the US as well as France, the Netherlands, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Belgium from 1942 to 1945.

The Commando Memorial is dedicated to commandos who died on operations, and was unveiled at Spean Bridge by the Queen Mother in 1952.

It is visited by about 200,000 people every year and Remembrance Sunday services and other commemorations are held at the site.

The Scott Sutherland Project said the Leaping Salmon sculpture would be the first memorial to 25 British and two US men who died during training at Achnacarry.

Efforts are being made to trace the commandos' families.

Steve Nicoll, a Royal Marine of 35 years and a member of the project, said the training in the Highlands was highly dangerous because of the use of live ammunition and explosives.

He said the salmon statue was a "perfect fit" for remembering commandos.

"Salmon returning to their spawning grounds have to overcome obstacles man-made and natural. Not all of them make it," he said.

"There is much to compare and contrast with the commando training and operations."

Mr Nicoll said the project had the blessing of Sutherland's family to remake the statue, and also create a new heritage trail dedicated to the artist and linking buildings connected to him.

Born in Wick in 1910, Sutherland was head of sculpture at Dundee's Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art for almost 30 years. He died in Dundee in 1984.

Mr Nicoll said Sutherland was a private man who shunned the limelight.

At the Commando Memorial unveiling Sutherland had to be coaxed out from the crowd to meet the Queen Mother.

Mr Nicoll said: "We want to commemorate the life and legacy of Scott Sutherland and almost invite him to come out from the shadows and enjoy just a little publicity for what he had done."