Remembering the Fallen: on this day in 1916, Second Lieutenant Walter Arthur Brooking, Royal Horse Artillery attached to No.15 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, was killed in action over Tourcoing, near Lille in France.

He was the observer with Lieutenant Charles Benjamin Wilson MC, the pilot of No.15 Squadron BE2c ‘2694’, on an escorted recce behind the German lines over Tourcoing, when they were shot down by Oberleutnant Michael Krug of Fleigerabtailung Nr 5b/Kek1, in a Fokker monoplane. While Second Lieutenant Brooking was killed, Lieutenant Wilson was severely wounded and lost consciousness but the plane landed safely by itself from 9,000 feet. Both men were listed as missing, presumed killed, but it was later discovered (through leaflets dropped over the British lines by a German aircraft) that Lieutenant Wilson had been found alive and taken prisoner.

The only son of Brigadier-General H.T. Brooking KCB, he had joined the army during the previous year, passing out at Woolwich in October of 1915 and being sent to France in December. He is buried in the Neuville-En-Ferrain Communal Cemetery

Walter, born in India during his father’s military service there, was 19 years old.