Robert Stirrat

Died

:

5 May 1941

Age

:

24

Rank

:

Police Constable

Force

:

Dundee City Police

Cause

:

War

Duty Status

:

On Duty

Roll of Honour Citation

Died in the Dundee Royal Infirmary from the extensive injuries he sustained as he tried to secure an unexploded mine that detonated.

Died in the Dundee Royal Infirmary from the extensive injuries he sustained as he tried to secure an unexploded mine that detonated.

Robert was on duty at Broughty Ferry Police Station when a report was received around 6:00am of an ‘unfamiliar object’ near the beach at Fisher Street and Dundas Street, to which he swiftly responded.

On approaching the object, he identified it as a mine. Realising the danger it would pose to Naval and Merchant shipping if it drifted back out into the estuary, he threw a rope around the mine and pulled it toward the shore to secure it but, as he did so, it exploded.

Robert was taken to Dundee Royal Infirmary in a critical condition and his family were called to his bedside. Though heavily sedated, he was aware of his extensive injuries.

In the Procurator Fiscal’s precognition into Robert’s death, the cause was amended to ‘Extensive injuries to both legs, right hand, shock and haemorrhage caused by explosion of mine’.