In Yokohama War Cemetery, Japan is the Commonwealth War Grave of:

R.H. Pollitt
Leading Stoker. RN.  P/KX. 83931
H.M.S. “Tern”
21st May 1945   age 32

He was the son of Ernest and Ellen Pollitt, of Blackhall Rocks. Co. Durham.

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-
Born in Eldon on 9th May 1913 Robert Henry Pollitt was the son of coal miner Ernest Pollitt and his wife Ellen (nee Bell), who in 1921 were living at 21 Rodwell Street, Trimdon Station with Robert and his older brother Thomas (b.1911).  By 1939 Ernest and Ellen were living at 11 Hart Crescent, Easington along with Thomas and his wife Annie.

HMS Tern was a gunboat serving on the Yangtze River in 1941 when she was transferred to Hong Kong, where, In December, she took part in the Battle of Hong Kong. On 11th December, she assisted in the evacuation of British forces from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island, and was then shot down by a Japanese aircraft. She was scuttled in Deep Water Bay on 19th December, to prevent capture by the Japanese.

The crew, including Robert Pollitt, were captured on Christmas Day 1941 and held at Sham Shui Po Prisoner of War Camp in Kowloon where Stoker Pollitt died from tuberculosis on 21st May 1945.

Robert Henry Pollitt is remembered at Blackhall on B144.01 and B144.02, in the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail List of Names, 1939-1945 and on our List of ships’ Crews.