Surname: Harrold
Forename(s): Sinclair Murray
Rank: Private
Service number: 14211638
Regiment: 5th Bn. Black Watch
Date of death: 11 June 1944 Aged 21
Place of death: Normandy
Buried

Commemorated

Hermanville War Cemetery 2. N. 12.

Kingussie War Memorial and St Andrew’s United Free Church Memorial now in Kingussie Parish Church.

Background

Sinclair was born on 20 December 1921 at 9 Railway Terrace, Kingussie to Alexander Harrold, Railway Signalman, and Mary Grant Harrold m.s. Murray. His parents had married in Wick 26 June 1908.

Sinclair’s brother, Alexander, was born at Mulben Station, Boharm, Banffshire where his father, Alexander, was a Railway Pointsman.

In the 1921 Census, prior to his birth, his parents Alexander, a Signalman with the Highland Railway Company, and his mother Mary and three brothers and three sisters were living at Ruthven Road, Kingussie (Railway Cottages).

His brother, Alexander Harrold, also died in World War Two in 1943 and is buried in Italy.

War Record

The 5th Battalion was the first of the Black Watch units to land in Normandy in the late afternoon of D-day, 6 June 1944.

Sinclair died on 11 June 1944. He was initially buried in a temporary grave at Breville and on 3 July 1945 was exhumed and re-buried in the Hermanville War Cemetery at Hermanville-sur-Mer alongside 900 other casualties of which 40 are from the 5th Battalion Black Watch who died on the same day as Sinclair.

His grave has the inscription chosen by the family

Till memory fades

And life departs

You will live for ever

In our hearts

Scroll to Top