Stephen, David James Shirras
Rank: Captain
Regiment: Royal Army Medical Corps
Biography: Son of Alexander Stephen, draper ; born at Fyvie, 21 June 1888. Graduated M.B., 1910 ; M.D., 1912. He was at first engaged in hospital work at Oldham, and afterwards in private practice in Lincoln. Stephen received his commission in the R.A.M.C. in October 1914, and spent some months in a military hospital at Woolwich. He went to the Front as M.O. to a Brigade of Artillery, and later became D.A.D.M.S. to the Division. In the second Battle of Ypres he was awarded the Military Cross “for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in attending to wounded under heavy shell-fire “ ; was recommended for the Victoria Cross, and a few weeks before his death received a bar to the M.C. It was at Poelcapelle, on 24 October 1917, that he died, of gas-shell poisoning. His death was characteristic of his unselfish devotion to duty, for it was in attending to a wounded officer that he neglected to take precautions in the adjustment of his gas-mask. Added to his serious qualities of character, he possessed a never-failing fund of cheerfulness and good spirits—an invaluable asset to the morale of his battery, where he was both loved and missed.
Honours: Military Cross with Bar
Date of Death: 24 October 1917
Burial Details: Buried at Mendinghem Military Cemetery, Proven, Plot 6, Row B, Grave 3.
Publication: Roll of Service, edited by Mabel Desborough Allardyce. Published 1921.
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