Name: Willy Omer François Jean Coppens de Houthulst Country: Belgium Rank: Major Service: Belgian Air Service Escadrilles: 1ère, 4me, 6me, 9me Victories: 37 Date Of Birth: July 6, 1892 Place of Birth: Watermaal-Bosvoorde Date Of Death: December 21, 1986 Coppens joined the army in 1912, serving with the 2nd Grenadiers before transferring to the Compagnie des Aviateurs in 1914. At his own expense, he and thirty nine other Belgians enrolled in a civilian flying school at Hendon, England. After additional training in France, Coppens began flying two-seaters in combat during 1916. The following year, he was assigned to single-seat fighters and soon became an expert at shooting down enemy observation balloons. After downing a balloon, Coppens would often perform aerial acrobatic displays above the enemy. On one occasion, the balloon he was attacking shot upward and Coppens actually landed his Hanriot HD.1 on top of it. Switching off his engine to protect the propeller, he waited until his aircraft slid off the top of the balloon, then restarted the engine and watched as the German balloon burst into flames and sank to the ground. On the morning of October 14, 1918, his days as a fighting pilot came to an end near Thourout in northwestern Belgium. Just as he began the attack that would culminate in his 37th victory, Coppens was hit in the left leg by an incendiary bullet. Despite a severed artery and intense pain, he shot down his target and managed to crash land within the safety of his own lines. His badly shattered leg had to be amputated. Before he retired from the army in 1940, Coppens served as a military attaché in France, Great Britain, Italy and Switzerland.
Willy Coppens died on 21 December 1986 aged 94 .... but not a lot is known about his later life ... apart from him being a military attache and a parachute jumper .... though I did see he signed Charles Lindbergh's record ( scroll to the last item ! ) http://www.fai.org/news_archives/fai/cat_world_records.asp It would be interesting to find out about the rest of his life !
Coppens' autobiography is Days on the Wing, sometimes titled Flying in Flanders, but it really only covers his Great War experiences. Gareth
My impression is that he was very reticent about his post WW1 life. He was a rich Flemish aristocrat - the Flemings are more Germanic than the Walloons - and I believe he spent WW2 in Switzerland. You would have thought such a famous Belgian would have played a greater role rallyin his country. Could he have had a degree of ambivalence to the issues of WW2, or is it unfair to even think this?
From Walter Pieters Above Flanders Fields: Coppens became Baron Willy Coppens after the war and was honoured with the addition of 'de Houthulst' to his name and stayed in the Army despite only having one leg. It was King Albert himself who persuaded Coppens to stay. Coppens deeply regretted this as the years wore on because he didn't get the promotions that he thought he deserved. He finally left the Army in 1940, still only a Major, having spent most of his years as a military attache in Italy, Switzerland, France and Great Britain. During World War II he resided in Switzerland organising some resistance work and marrying there. In the late sixties he went back to Belgium and lived the last five years with [6 victory ace] Jan Olieslagers' only daughter until his sudden death on 21 December 1986. His famous book Days on the Wing was published in 1934. Gareth
I heard he was a little disenchanted with the system .... and I'm sorry to say his disability held him back and I'm sure the disability was no longer confined to a missing limb and he felt incomplete and "the powers that be" thought he was incapable of doing a job because of it ....... He tried to show them that he was the same ... by his daredevil antics with the parachute jumping ... but when that didn't seem to make any difference ... he probably had a chip on his shoulder ! I wonder about his wife and if he had any family ..... and I wonder why he went to live with Jan Olieslagers' daughter in his old age ( maybe he didn't have any family ! ) Too many questions ...... Thanks for your replies Gareth and Adrian ! Annie
