TARBAT WAR MEMORIAL

Alex Cowie, born in Pultneytown Wick, moved to Inver with his family in late 1911 where he went to Inver School.  On leaving school he was a farm worker, but also worked on the construction of the fuel storage tanks near Invergordon. Like many others from this area he was in the Territorials and was called up when war broke out.

Alex was a member of the 4^TH Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, which was, in January 1940 sent to France to reinforce the Maginot Line.  When the German forces went around the Maginot Line the British Expeditionary Force and the French were in full retreat towards Dunkirk.  The 51^ST Highland Division, including the 4^TH Seaforths, was part of the rearguard used to slow the German advance so Dunkirk could be evacuated.

The 4^TH Seaforths were used to counter attack the German forces at Abbeville, they suffered many casualties and once again were ordered to withdraw.  The Battalion also fought bravely holding one bank of the River Bethune near Dieppe but the front line was crumbling around them and again they were ordered to withdraw, first to Dieppe and then to St Valery-en-Caux, where the 51^ST Highland Division, encircled and short of ammunition and food, were ordered to surrender on the 12^TH of June 1940.

Alex, now a prisoner of war, was marched, in the middle of summer with the rest of the Highland Division for three weeks, with very little food or water, across France and into Germany before being put onto barges on the Rhine.

Alex was working on a farm in Poland when his spine was broken in an incident with a threshing machine and although hospitalised he died on the 12^TH of February 1942. He was 37 years old and left a wife and 4 young children in Inver.

 He was the son of Alexander and Helen Cowie and husband of Jean Margaret Cowie of Inver.  He is buried in the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Poland.