Dishonourable thieves have stolen a beautiful D-Day memorial to Scottish soldiers in northern France and likely "melted it down" for scrap. The stunning figure of a bronze piper was stolen on Friday from a plinth in the Normandy village of Bréville-les-Monts, near Caen, where it had stood for the past 15 years.
The evocative kilt-wearing piper was dedicated to the 51st Highland Division and stood proudly on an Aberdeenshire granite base as a memorial to the brave Scottish fighters who battled against the Nazis in the fields and streets surrounding the village in June 1944. The theft of the one-tonne sculpture is even more despicable as it comes just a week before D-Day commemorations for the Allied forces who liberated the region 82 years ago.
Now campaigners are hoping to raise enough money to cast a replacement from a twin which stands in The House of Bruar, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. A GoFundMe site has already attracted donations since its launch today (Monday, June 1). Renowned Scottish sculptor Alan B Herriot was honoured when he was asked to craft the original sculpture now in the hands of thieves in France.
Speaking to the Daily Express about the theft, he said: "It's an awful thing to have happened. It's a shocking, disgusting thing to have done.
"It really is outrageous...because we owe the 51st Highland Division and the men of World War II, we owe them something that we can't really repay."
Mr Herriott is one of Scotland's greatest living sculptors with iconic works standing across Scotland, in the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, England, and around the world.
He added that the foundry which could forge a replacement for the stolen piper said it was likely it had already been "melted down" by the thieves.
Discussing a hypothetical punishment for the thieves, Mr Herriott pointed to a comment he had seen online.
"One fella came up with a plan, I totally agree with. If they caught any of these thieves they should send them across to fight for Ukraine on the front line," he said.
"If they get killed it's nobody's loss and if they survive, maybe they will realise why these memorials were there in the first place."
The piper was a tribute to Scottish infantrymen who had stormed on to Juno Beach, in Normandy, on June 6th 1944, before dying in a fierce fire fight a few days later.
Visitors from Britain were due to gather around the statue next Saturday, on the 82nd anniversary of D-Day. Instead, French police are now involved in a criminal investigation, as they try to find the statue, and brings the thieves to justice.
"The statue was reported missing early on Friday morning – it was forced off its plinth, and clearly loaded on to a vehicle," said an investigating source.
A spokesman for Bréville-les-Monts town council said: "It is with great sadness that we discovered the disappearance of the statue of the bagpipe player on the monument to the 51st Highland Infantry Division.
"This was a shameful act, just one week before the D-Day commemorations."
The spokesman said Bréville council had filed a report to police at Merville-Franceville, who were leading the investigation.
The statue was erected some 15 years ago in the grounds of the Château St Come, where 51st Highlanders fought alongside elements of the 6th Airborne Division, against German troops.
The vastly outnumbered Highlanders mainly belonging to the 5th Battalion of the Black Watch Regiment, lost 110 men in just two days as they helped secure the bridgehead across the River Orne.
The lane leading up to the château became so dangerous that it was known as ‘Death Ally’.
The site is close to Pegasus Bridge, the memorial to British paras who landed in France in gliders, before later being supported by troops who arrived from the invasion beaches.
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