Time to start a new gig. For fourteen years I have looked with envy at CDR Salamander's Fullbore Friday, and over the past couple of years I began to think of doing something similar on this here humble blog... but with an emphasis on Belgian Army personalities. I will readily admit that the decision to limit myself to what is in effect a small 'demographic' is that, as a keen reader of history, I have always felt that same history has not been especially nice to our military. As a result, public perception, not in the know about a topic that most find generally boring, even when 'martial' countries are involved, has easily accepted the paradigm that Belgian military prowess is nonexistant at worst, and deserving of being the butt of many jokes at best. This new series is meant to provide another view, a view that is, in my opinion, long overdue.
Mark Felton's got a very well made and instructive video on the first person in what I hope will be a long-lived feature here on DowneastBlog. Ladies and Gentlemen, here is Baron Jean Michel P.M.G. de Selys Longchamps, DFC, who during a daring raid in JAN 1943 raided the Gestapo HQ in Brussels with his Hawker Typhoon:
Only eight months after the attack, in the night of AUG 15/16 1943, Captain-demoted-PO for the unauthorized raid Jean de Selys Longchamps flew a mission over Ostend. Hit heavily by flak, he flew back over the Channel only to find out that his landing gear malfunctioned. Upon touching down on Manston airfield's runway his Typhoon crashed and broke in two. The Baron was killed instantly. He was buried with full military honors in Minster-in-Thanet.
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