This memorial page is dedicated to Albert Ernest Brookes, one of more than 725 war victims connected to the municipality of Deurne documented by Stichting Oorlogsslachtoffers. The municipality of Deurne and the surrounding villages of Liessel, Vlierden, Helenaveen, Neerkant and Zeilberg were liberated in the autumn of 1944 during heavy fighting. Victims fell on all sides: Allied soldiers from countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and New Zealand, and German soldiers.

But the archive covers more than just the combat victims on Deurne soil. Residents of Deurne who lost their lives elsewhere are also commemorated: civilians who were murdered in concentration camps, forced labourers who died in Germany, people who were executed or succumbed to the effects of persecution and oppression. In addition, residents of Deurne who entered German military service and were killed elsewhere are also included.

Stichting Oorlogsslachtoffers has been documenting the story of all these people since 1995, without distinction of nationality, side or background. The goal is to give every person a name and a face, and to keep their memory alive.

 

Albert Ernest Brookes

Name: Brookes
First names: Albert Ernest
Nickname: –
Date of birth: 27 November 1919
Place of birth: Sculcoates, North Riding of Yorkshire
Residence: Hull
Rank / Occupation: Trooper
Identity tag: 4618773
Unit: Royal Armoured Corps, 22nd Dragoons.
Date of death: 3 December 1944
Place of death: Neerkant
Cause of death: –
Cemetery: Mierlo War Cemetery
Memorial site: –

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Additional information

Grave location: V. D. 2.

Aged 25. Son of Paul Brookes and Ellen Eliza Brookes-Owen.

Albert Ernest Brookes was killed in action one month after the liberation of Neerkant; whilst his unit was engaged in fierce fighting around Blerick on this day and the staff had by then moved their headquarters to Zelen near Panningen, Albert Ernest Brookes (along with, amongst others, Trooper Harald Lister) deployed to recover flails (mine-sweepers) and to retrieve parts of damaged and jammed flails at N.132 (now Scheper Jannebaan). However, these mine-sweepers were situated in the middle of a minefield; in all likelihood, they must therefore have driven or walked onto a mine.

Albert Ernest Brookes’s field grave was situated to the right of N. 31 (now Heitrak 2) in Neerkant.

10 March 2019: Lee & Dianne Brookes from Hull, United Kingdom. Together with Lee (Albert Ernest Brookes’s second cousin) and Dianne, I visited the grave in Mierlo, as well as the locations where they died and the first grave in Neerkant.

Het veldgraf van Albert Ernest Brookes bevond zich rechts van N. 31 (nu Heitrak 2) te Neerkant.

Below is a photo of the field graves near No. 31 (now Heitrak).
Beneden een foto van de veldgraven nabij N. 31 (nu Heitrak).

In the photograph below (with Albert George Birch’s grave in the foreground), the house at what is now 104 Dorpsstraat is clearly recognisable in the background.
Op onderstaande foto (met op de voorgrond het graf van Albert George Birch) is op de achtergond de woning van de huidige Dorpsstraat 104 goed herkenba

View all persons in the category: Allied soldiers killed in action