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Kenneth E BROOKS
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| ARMY SERIAL NUMBER | 39531335 | |||||||||
| AGE | 28 yo | |||||||||
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1915 | |||||||||
| ETAT | Torrance CALIFORNIA | |||||||||
| FAMILLE | Maried | |||||||||
| RANK | Staff Sergeant | |||||||||
| FONCTION | Gunner | |||||||||
| JOB before ENLISTEMENT | Barbers, beauticians, and manicurists |  | ||||||||
| DATE of ENLISTEMENT | 17 august 1942 Los Angeles CALIFORNIA | |||||||||
| SQUADRON | 365th Bomber Squadron | |||||||||
| GROUP | 305th Bomber Group, Heavy | |||||||||
| ARMY | 40th Combat Wing 8th Air Force | |||||||||
| DATE OF DEATH | 13 may 1943 |  | ||||||||
| STATUS | KIA | |||||||||
| PLACE OF DEATH |
Meaulte (Amiens)
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| DATA PLAN |
B17Constituted as 305th Bombardment Group (Heavy) on 28 Jan 1942.Activated on 1 Mar 1942.Take-off:the airfield of Chelveston, Station 105
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| CEMETERY |
NORMANDY AMERICAN CEMETERY | |||||||||
| GRAVE |
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| DECORATION |
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| STORY | ||||||||||
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Kenneth E. Brooks was born in 1915 in South Dakota and lived in Mitchell City, Davison County, South Dakota. He was the only child of Violet V. Brooks and Lawrence N. Brooks, both from Illinois and of Irish origin. Between the 1920s and 1930s, the Brooks family moved to Redondo Beach, California, where Kenneth's father continued to work in auto repair. In 1940, Kenneth and his family left life on the beach and moved to Bishop, Inyo County, California. Here, Kenneth Brooks worked as a barber, barber in 1939. Through all these moves, Kenneth did two years of high school. At the beginning of the Second World War, Kenneth was 24 years old. In early childhood, he enrolled in the National Guard and was raped in 1942. Prior to his enlistment, the Brooks family returned to the Los Angeles area, where they resided in Torrance where Kenneth was married. By the time Kenneth completed his basic training, the 365 th Bomb Squadron, 305 th Bomb Group, was already stationed in Grafton Underwood, England. In December 1942, the unit moved to Chelveston, England. The motto of the group of bombs was "Can Do". Weighing 117 pounds at the time of enlistment, he had the perfect stature to be a gunner on a B-17 flying fortress. The gunners have the most vulnerable positions in flight because they are locked outside the main hull of the aircraft. Kenneth's responsibility was to protect the belly of the plane from flying enemies. The Flying Fortress was designed for heavy bombardment, with a load capacity of 5,000 pounds for a long-distance fall or a capacity of 8,000 pounds for a short drop. The shipyards, the submarine enclosures, the marshalling yards, the wharves, the harbors and the vital roads of the enemy were the main targets of the 305 th Bomb Group. On May 13, 1943, Kenneth E. Brooks flies in B-17 # 4229647 with a crew of nine others. Their goal was to bomb strategic locations near Amiens, France. The Brooks B-17 was shot down. Six crew members, including Brooks, were killed and five others were captured. Kenneth Brooks received the Purple Heart, which was awarded posthumously to his mother, Violet, by Secretary of War Henry Stimson. | ||||||||||
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| SOURCES INFORMATIONS | Findagrave.com - Aad.archives.gov - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
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| SOURCES PHOTOS | Brian Jodi Kueker |
| PROGRAMMEURS | Frédéric & Renaud |
| TRADUCTION |