È Lieutenant Herbert Denham Brotheridge was a British Army officer, and is often considered to be the first Allied soldier to be killed in action on D-Day, 6 June 1944, during Operation Tonga. However, before him a small French and British SAS-detachment having left England before 23:00 hours that night and parachuted into Brittany already had to combat White Russians in German service immediately after landing and some of them had been killed there.[citation needed]
Den Brotheridge was born in Smethwick, Staffordshire, the son of Herbert Charles and Lilian Brotheridge. Before going to Normandy, he was married to Margaret who was 8 months pregnant when he left. He was talked into D Company in an early stadium by Major Howard himself who considered him to be a friend. What both men shared at the time was their simple social background and their love of sports. They were sometimes targets for upper class British officers, but gradually deserved even their military respect.
Brotheridge came to command 25 Platoon (also known as first platoon) in Major John Howard's 'D' Company, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 6th Airborne Division, and led the first charge across the bridge at Benouville, now known as Pegasus Bridge during the nocturnal coup-de-main-action. He managed to silence the left German MP-post at the western bank of the Caen Canal, but was hit with a shot in the back of the neck and died of wounds in the early hours of 6 June aged 26 in a Casualty Collection Post situated in a trench between the Caen Canal- and Orne-bridges, where Captain John Vaughan RAMC took care of him. Lt. Herbert Denham Brotheridge is buried in the War Cemetery in Ranville Churchyard near Caen in France.[1] Ranville was the first village in France to be liberated.
Brotheridge received a mention in dispatches for this action [2]
Note that some purists modify this death to be the first death on D-Day, because another soldier in the attack (Lance-Corporal Fred Greenhalgh) died by drowning when thrown out of his glider. [3]
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.