I have included this tribute page to Frank Leslie (Les) Crookes of the Natal South Coast, on my website, not because he is family, but because he served in the same unit of the Natal Mounted Rifles as my father Gordon Knowles Munro, who was there at the time of the incident leading to Les' death.

Frank Leslie Crookes

9 July 1919 - 13 October 1942

1st Natal Mounted Rifles Union Defence Forces

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Frank Leslie (Les) Crookes was from the South Coast of Natal in South Africa. He was born in Ladysmith, and he was a "miner" by profession. He was the son of Frank Leonard and Mary Crookes from Scottburgh. During the Second World War he served in North Africa with the 1st Natal Mounted Rifles. He and his brother Len, had joined the unit at Gazala, shortly before the 17 June 1942 rout of the British 8th Army by Rommel's forces, known as the "Gazala Gallop". Gordon Munro also served in the same unit and was there at the time.

Early on the evening of 8th of October 1942, about a fortnight before the second battle of El Alamein began, Frank was wounded by a stray bullet from a burst of machine gun fire. He was evacuated and treated for his wound. It seemed that his surgery was a success and he was making good progress, when his brother and the unit Chaplain Nap Wheeler visited him. Sadly the day after their visit, the thirteenth of October, he passed away suddenly from a clot in his blood stream which reached his heart.

The following is the correspondence to his parents Frank Leonard and Mary, firstly from Defence Headquarters in Pretoria, advising that Les had been wounded, and then from his commanding officer Major Elton Blamey to advise that he had died of his wounds. The last letter is from the Chaplain of the unit the Rev. J.N. (Nap) Wheeler to convey his condolences. In a tragic twist of fate Nap himself was to be killed by a mortar shell just two weeks later on 2nd November 1942, probably before his letter had been received by Frank and Mary in Scottburgh. Nap was from Pinetown, also in Natal, and his family were well known at St. John's Church there, where he had married his wife, Patricia, in 1938.