Stone set to mark its first VE day in place
On Saturday, May 8 the Errol Memorial Stone celebrates its first VE Day in position in the stunning surroundings of Errol Church.
The giant block of red stone commemorating Russian airmen who were based at RAF Errol during WWII was transported from Russia by sea and put in place last autumn - a year later from the originally planned day which was inscribed on the cast iron plaque.
The joint Scottish-Russian commemoration team plans to launch an annual tradition honouring the two countries’ WWII alliance.
The Errol Stone did not have an inauguration ceremony last November when it was lowered into place. Because of the pandemic, only the transportation crew from Morris Leslie, local councillor Angus Forbes and a handful of locals were witness to its arrival.
A formal inauguration ceremony has been postponed until people are able to travel, hopefully in May 2022.
Tomorrow, May 8, at 11am, wreaths to mark VE Day will be jointly laid in front of the Errol Stone by the Russian Consul General in Edinburgh Andrei Yakovlev, Brigadier Sir Melville Jameson and a person on behalf of the provost of Perth and Kinross Dennis Melloy.
Piper Malcolm Innes will play a short lament.
After that, Consul General Yakovlev will make a stop at the Errol Airfield to pay respect to the memorial plaque.
The brass plaque with a dedication to the Russian airmen was hand carried from Moscow and installed in May 2015 for the 70th VE Day anniversary.
The Russian Air Unit had been quartered in the apple orchard nearby where there are remains of the stone basement of the barracks.
Each May for the last six years the Russian Corner with a nice small garden of birch trees and flowers, has been the main VE Day ceremonial site.
A second focus of the Russian war memorial is at Fearnan on Loch Tay where an Allied plane crashed in May 1943, killing the mainly Russian crew.
From Errol the Russian representative Consul General Yakovlev will be driven to Fearnan village to lay a wreath there, with the local community participating.
Michail Shvidkoy, special representative of the president of the Russian Federation for international cultural cooperation, spoke for a broadcast on TASS (Russian TV) to be broadcast on May 8.
He said: “Each one of the Russian airmen commemorated on this Errol memorial – truly a people’s memorial – was an outstanding war hero.
“Their names will forever hold a proud place in the glorious chronicle of the WWII alliance between our two nations.
“And now, decades later, they have been entrusted with a further ‘special mission’: to hand down to future generations the memory of how our nations marched side by side to the Great Victory – and to remind us all how vital it is to safeguard the peace for which they paid so dearly.”
Looking forward to the day, Brig Sir Mel Jameson said: “On VE Day we join our WWII allies in celebrating a great victory at the end of an horrific war.
“We remember all those brave servicemen and women, who gave their lives for our freedom. The stunning Errol Stone is a gift from the Russian people and was recently installed in the churchyard of the Errol Church.
“It stands proudly and impressively in commemoration of all those brave airmen from Russia who served alongside The RAF at Errol in the cause of freedom for Europe and the world”.