Edward Brooks was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
He was 34 years old, and a Company Sergeant Major in the 2/4th Bn., Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.
On 28 April1917 at Fayet, near St. Quentin, France, Company Sergeant-Major Brooks, while taking part in a raid on the enemy's trenches, saw that the front wave was being checked by an enemy machine-gun. On his own initiative he rushed forward from the second wave, killed one of the gunners with his revolver and bayoneted another. The remainder of the gun crew then made off, leaving the gun, whereupon the company sergeant-major turned it on the retreating enemy, after which he carried it back to Allied lines. His courageous action undoubtedly prevented many casualties and greatly added to the success of the operation.
Having settled in Chicago in 1844, the Brooks family were also imbued with a sense of how members of their family had risen to the occasion to fight for their country during the Revolution, and Asa Brooks, Edward's father, further instilled them with abolitionist sympathies.
Thus for EdwardBrooks, the decision to volunteer for duty in the Union army during the Civil War was almost inevitable, and on August 6, 1862, he enlisted in an independent company of light artillery, the 3rd Chicago Board of Trade Battery.
Brooks' memories of the engagement, however, were of the heroic performance of the "colored" brigade led by Col. Edward Boughton, which prevented the total annihilation of Sturgis' force.
The dangerous act was the stabbing of EdwardBrooks in the chest with a knife.
The offence was aggravated by reason that Maureen Brooks caused the death of EdwardBrooks by her dangerous act and that at the time of doing that act she was under the influence of alcohol.
Ms Brooks will be required to place herself under the supervision of the Director or the delegate for a period of 18 months from the date of her release from imprisonment and to obey all reasonable directions as to employment, residence, associates, reporting and assessment, counselling and treatment for substance abuse.
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