Date of birth:

December 25th, 1912 (Menen, Belgium)

Date of death:

September 28th, 1944 (Albasserdam, The Netherlands)

Buried on:

Belgian War Grave General Cemetery Alblasserdam

Service number:

117611

Nationality:

Belgian

Jean-Noël Vandaele was born in Menen on 25 December 1912 and studied law at the University of Leuven. After his studies, he worked at the Ypres company Picanol. During the German invasion in May 1940, he served with the Belgian army and after the capitulation he became active in the resistance. As the Germans tracked him down, he fled and arrived in England via France and Spain where he enlisted in the RAF in 1942 and was trained fighter pilot. In July 1944, he arrived in Normandy where he joined 609 Squadron, in which several Belgian pilots flew.

At 3.20pm on 28 September 1944, he and three other pilots from 609 Squadron took off for a patrol over the Netherlands from Advanced Landing Ground (ALG) B-53 at Merville in northern France. On the river Lek off Kinderdijk, they observed a number of barges moored.

Jean-Noël flew as ‘Red 3’ in the formation with his Hawker Typhoon MN 954 PR-U. At 4.15pm, the attack was launched and from an altitude of 3,000 metres, the fighters dove towards their target to fire their eight missiles each. After they had carried out their attack and were preparing to return to their base, they heard Jean-Noël shouting over the on-board radio that he had been hit and had to leave his aircraft with his parachute. He still managed to get out of the crashing plane but due to the low altitude, his parachute did not open and he died.

The pilots saw the plane dive down from a low altitude and crash. The plane drilled into the ground near the Kortlandse polder in Alblasserdam. A 14-year-old boy who was working in the field nearby saw how shells from the German anti-aircraft guns hit the plane after which it plunged to earth. The young man rushed to the crash site and found the body of the fallen pilot. However, he was immediately sent away by a policeman after which the pilot's body was charged by German soldiers.

The NSB mayor of Alblasserdam is said to have said: just throw the pilot's body in a hole. But the Alblasserdam people did not take that and gave him a proper burial. He was initially buried as an unknown English pilot in the cemetery behind the Oude Toren in Alblasserdam, where he still rests. After the war, the identity of the fallen pilot was established.

The aircraft was not recovered by the German troops and remained behind in the swampy soil of the Kortlandse polder. In 2015, remains of the plane were found during excavation work, which was salvaged in its entirety in 2024 at a depth of 6 metres in the peat soil.

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• Photo 1: Bel.memorial.org
• Photo 2: Dick de Bruijne
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