Re: Terrain Challenge #43 (Score: 1) by Lestayo on Tue Mar 22, 2011 3:56 pm (User Info | Send a Message) | Lieutenant Herbert Denham Brotheridge was a British Army officer, and was the first Allied soldier to be killed in action on D-Day, 6 June 1944, during Operation Tonga.
Brotheridge was born in Smethwick, Staffordshire.
Brotheridge commanded a platoon in Major John Howard's 'D' Company, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 6th Airborne Division, and led a charge across the Bridge now known as Pegasus Bridge. He was hit with a shot to the neck and died of wounds in the early hours of 6 June aged 26. He is buried in the War Cemetery in Ranville Churchyard near Caen in France. Ranville was the first village in France to be liberated.
Brotheridge received a mention in dispatches for this action.
Note that some purists modify this death to be the first death "by enemy fire" because another soldier in the attack (Lance-Corporal Fred Greenhalgh) died by drowning when exiting his glider.
A memorial plaque to commemorate the events of Den Brotheridge's death was unveiled at Smethwick Council House on 2 April 1995 by his daughter, Margaret Brotheridge. |
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