Kohne, Robert Desmond

Identity

Person No.

31121

Old ROH no.

722

Service No.

79493680PE

Last Name

Kohne 1

First Name

Robert Desmond

Initials

R D

Date of Birth

Unknown

Est. Birth Year

1963 (±1 yr) 330

Age at Death

29

Death Record

Date of Death

26 February 1992 107

Cause code

ACC 1,584

Accident

Cause of Death

Died in Freak Accident 255

Died in Freak Accident, fell into lift shaft of SAS Drakensberg, at Simon's Town

Military Service

Branch

Navy

Rank

Lieutenant Commander

Regiment

SAS Drakensberg 1

Unit

SAS Drakensberg 2

Defence Force

SADF 3,832

South African Defence Force

Location

Country

South Africa 23,874

Locality

Gauteng 9,374

Cemetery

SADF WALL OF REMEMBRANCE, VOORTREKKER MONUMENT, PRETORIA 1,926

Grave Reference

Alternative Commemoration until grave found 1,612

Memorial

SADF Wall of Remembrance

Location

On a koppie at the Voortrekker Monument, overlooking Pretoria

Address

Voortrekker Monument, Eeufees Road, Groenkloof, Pretoria, 0181, South Africa

Coordinates

-25.77639, 28.17583 · OpenStreetMap

Panel

Not listed against a numbered panel

On the panel

Position on the panel will be added with photographs

Unit History

Part of

Support and mine warfare

Part of

Support and mine warfare

Notes

Husband of Mrs. S. J. Kohne

Research notes

Col (rt) Graham du Toit Last Post 26 Feb 2024: 79493680PE Lieutenant Commander Robert Desmond Kohne, SAS Drakensberg, killed when he accidentally fell into a lift shaft during construction and maintenance work on the ship at the Durban shipyards, age 29. Unit was 107 Air Commando Sqn — corrected to SAS Drakensberg (regiment already Sas Drakensberg). ROH DateDeath is 1992-02-26; place is Simon's Town (not overwritten). Cause had HTML entity ' — corrected to an apostrophe.
25 Sep 2026, Unit2 service-branch sweep: the stored Secondary Unit "Navy" was CLEARED as a duplicate. It was not a sub-unit, it was a service-branch word repeating what the Branch column already says. Secondary Unit is for sub-units -- a company, a squadron, a commando -- and this record's branch of service is unchanged at "Navy".

Citations

Unknown

External References

Col (rt) Graham du Toit Last Post
Col (rt) Graham du Toit Last Post 26 Feb 2024: 79493680PE Lieutenant Commander Robert Desmond Kohne, SAS Drakensberg, killed when he accidentally fell into a lift shaft during construction and maintenance work on the ship at the Durban shipyards, age 29. Unit was 107 Air Commando Sqn — corrected to SAS Drakensberg (regiment already Sas Drakensberg). ROH DateDeath is 1992-02-26; place is Simon's Town (not overwritten). Cause had HTML entity ' — corrected to an apostrophe.
South African War Graves Project open source ↗
The War in Angola open source ↗
War In Angola Roll of Honour (warinangola.com, tabid=1175), page 23 of 143: confirmed, no changes.

Stories 1

by Andrew Preston on 03 December 2011 · via source

As far as I know, Rob met his death in an accident onboard the SAS DRAKENSBERG. I served with Rob in the Navy Permanent Force when we were both mideshipman, and have great memories of an astro-navigation training cruise that we did to the Far East onboard the Safmarine owned SA CONSTANTIA. While exploring Tokyo one day, on a whim, we decided to head out to Mount Fuji, and the two of us walked up the mountain where we spent the night in a lodge near the summit. We hadn't intended doing this, and only had a packet of dried squid between the two of us to share. Young Japanese guys were carrying bicycles up the mountain and getting the saddles branded at each of the "stations" along the route. Those were good times! Rob was such an easy-going and popular guy. His death was really tragic and a great loss to the Navy, as well as to all his friends. On Mount Fuji - 1983? at a fish market in Singapore, en route to Japan (1983?) The SA Constantia, off Hiroshima, Japan.

Dedications

No dedications have been added yet.

Kohne , Robert Desmond (R D)