World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseAlan Francis Brooke was born in Bagnères-de-Bigorre in France to Victor Brooke of Ulster, a wealthy Northern Irish man. After education in France, he attended Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, England, and graduated as an artillery officer. He served in Ireland and India, then with the Royal Artillery he served in France during WW1. At the end of the war he achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel. In the interwar years, he taught at Camberley Staff College and the Imperial Defence College.

ww2dbaseAt the start of WW2, Brooke commanded the Second Corps of the British Expeditionary Force, which failed to stop the German invasion. He played a major role in the Dunkirk evacuation, in which he was credited in providing the vital defenses that allowed the troops to be evacuated by naval vessels in the rear. In Jul 1940 he became the commander of the United Kingdom Home Forces, then in Dec 1941 Chief of the Imperial General Staff and Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. He was also a vital member in the planning of the Normandy invasions of 1944. His public disagreements with some of Winston Churchill's policies made these appointments surprising, but it also reflected Churchill's respect for his leadership ability. Like Bernard Montgomery, Brooke was also a contender for the position of Supreme Commander of Allied forces in Europe, but that position was eventually given to Dwight Eisenhower based upon the percentage of men and materiel the United States had contributed to the alliance. "[Brooke] was highly intelligent and earnestly devoted to the single purpose of winning the war", said Eisenhower. "He did not hesitate to differ sharply and vehemently, but he did it forthrightly and honestly.... He must be classed as a brilliant soldier." He was promoted Field Marshal in 1944 and made Baron Alanbrooke of Brookenborough, County Fermanagh, in 1945.

ww2dbaseAfter the war, in Nov 1945, as Britain's chairman of chiefs of staff, he visited Douglas MacArthur in Japan. MacArthur found him to be "a professional soldier of the highest class" who "had a broad view of global strategy that had no inhibitions of service rivalry." In 1946, he was made Viscount Alanbrooke. He later served as Chancellor of the Queen's University of Belfast until his death in 1963. He now rests in his home village of Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, where the last heir to the Alanbrooke viscountcy still lives.

ww2dbaseHis memoirs were published in 2001. It stirred controversy for his criticism of Churchill's wartime decisions.

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