A D-Day Sculpture is set to arrive in Perth later this year during its first visit to Scotland.
The D-Day: Soldiers of Sacrifice sculpture will be placed at the Black Watch Castle and Museum when it arrives in the Fair City in the summer.
It commemorates the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings and provides a lasting tribute to the lives lost in the first 24 hours of the Normandy landings, having been commissioned by the D-Day Story museum in Portsmouth.
Chief executive of the Black Watch Castle and Museum, Anne Kinnes described it as a “privilege” that the sculpture will be visiting.
She said: “It is a great privilege to be the first location in Scotland to welcome the D-Day: Soldiers of Sacrifice sculpture.
“We are grateful to the D-Day Story for for loaning us this incredible artwork and honoured to be in a position to share the story it represents with our visitors.”
The statue was created by renowned artist Alfie Bradley and represents Lieutenant Den Brotheridge, who served with the 2nd Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry during the Second World War.
Lieutenant Brotheridge is widely believed to have been the first allied serviceman to be killed on D-Day.
Sculptor Alfie Bradley said: “Working on the sculpture has been such a meaningful project.
“Den Brotheridge was 28 when he died, the same age I was whilst working on this project.
“I can’t even begin to imagine how terrifying it would have been to land on the beach in Normandy that day.
“The more I’ve read up on D-Day, the more I realise how grateful we should all be for their heroic sacrifice.”
The structure of the sculpture is made from steel rods, steel sheets, welding wire, resin and more than 4,000 replica bullets.
Each bullet represents Lieutenant Brotheridge’s comrades in arms who fell in battle that day.
The soldier is crouched down as if to throw a grenade, but instead he is releasing a dove.
This is to symbolise peace and acknowledges that the deaths of the soldiers killed on D-Day were not in vain.
The D-Day: Soldiers of Sacrifice sculpture will be at the Black Watch museum from June 6 until July 12.
