TARBAT WAR MEMORIAL

Henry James Cumming, know as Harry, was born in Tain, the son of Alexander and Annie Cumming of Portmahomack, and attended Tarbat Old Public School.  

He joined the Royal Navy and was trained at Devonport and was then posted to the Far East as an Ordinary Seaman aboard H.M.S. Scorpion.

H.M.S. Scorpion was a flat-bottomed boat river gunboat with a crew of 93 based in Hong Kong to protect British interests there.  At the fall of China to the Japanese H.M.S. Scorpion was moved in December 1940 to help Singapore with it's defence, also from the Japanese attacking down through Malaya.  Harry fell ill with a haemorrhage of the brain and died from tubercular meningitis in the military hospital in Singapore on the 24^TH of May 1941; he was 21 years of age.

He is buried in Kranji War Cemetery, Singapore.

Japanese destroyers in the Banka Strait sank H.M.S. Scorpion on the 13^TH of February 1942, 2 days before Singapore fell; there were 5 survivors.

His elder brother Alexander Cumming was lost in the North Sea later in the war.

Harry Cumming (Front Right) with crew members from H.M.S. Scorpion

H.M.S. Scorpian