TARBAT WAR MEMORIAL

Douglas Gordon left Glenalmond School and was set to go to Assam to become a tea planter, his passport already stated his occupation as a tea planter on it, but the war breaking out meant he never reached India.

Douglas enlisted as a private but was then commissioned as an officer in the 5^TH Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders.

The Seaforths found themselves in North Africa with 51 Highland Division fighting Erwin Rommell 's Afrika Korp and were involved from their arrival in Egypt in August 1942 in the attempt to drive the Afrika Korp out of North Africa. Douglas was promoted from Lieutenant to Captain and was Officer Commanding 'C' Company in the Battalion when the Afrika Korp who had been in retreat since El Alamein tried to hold up the Allied advance in the last natural defence left to them, the Heights of Roumana which jutted up 600 feet from the flat plain around Wadi-el-Akarit.

The Seaforths advance on the Heights started at 3.30am on the 6^TH  April 1943 with 'C' Company on the forward left, the advance would go for 2000 yards before the artillery barrage would come down on the enemy positions and the advance would then climb the Heights and take the position. This attack was successful but the Germans launched a counter attack and bitter close quarter fighting ensued but the Seaforths held until the Black Watch came to relieve them, but the action was costly to the Seaforths with 32 men killed and 96 wounded.

It was the last major battle of the North African campaign.

Douglas Gordon was killed early in the morning leading 'C' Company forward and was initially buried in a Seaforth cemetery below the Heights before being reburied in Sfax War Cemetery, Tunisia.

Douglas Gordon was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Paterson Gordon of Bindal, Portmahomack.