Engineer Officer Robert Brodie

Engineer Officer Robert Brodie, Merchant Navy. He was lost at sea on the 10th October 1942, aged 20, whilst serving aboard the H.M.T “Orcades”. He was the son of Alexander and Sophia Brodie of 12 Thornfield Avenue, Selkirk and is commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial, London. The ” Orcades” was a passenger ship of 23,456 tons owned by the Orient Line and was launched in 1936. In 1939 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty to be used as a troopship. On 9th October she left Capetown en route to Liverpool with 741 passengers and 3,000 tons of general cargo. On the 10th she was torpedoed several times by U-172 and eventually sank with the loss of 45 lives and 1,022 saved. U-172 was sunk on 13th December 1943 by a combination of U.S. ships and aircraft.