Jaak Vanderperren was born on February 16th, 1920 at Dendermonde. He entered the Royal Military School in November 1937. He was Sub-Lt in the artillery when War broke out. On 15 May 1940, the training school were Jaak was on courses, evacuated to France an was fielded at Maçon at the time of the French capitulation. He stayed several months in France before escaping to the non - occupied zone of Vichy in March 1941. Being arrested by Vichy police, he was imprisoned at Marseille an Mauzat afterwards from where he escaped 3 weeks later. He crossed the French - Spanish border on 24 September 1941. Arrested 5 days later at Aoiz, he was sent as political prisoner to several Spanish concentration camps. Released on December 1st, he arrived in UK on January 4th, 1942. He enlisted the RAFVR on 5 May 1942 with the rank P/O and started his initial training on 15 May 1942 at 17 ITW. On August 18th, he joined 6 EFTS at Sywell. He was then send to Canada completing his training : CADC (24 September 1942), PAC (17 November 1942), 31 EFTS (22 November 1942), 34 S Flight TS, PRC (23 June 1943). He was then posted to 5(P) AFU (7 July 1943) and 61 OTU (28 December 1943). His training finished, Jaak was designated for 349 Sqn where he arrived on 22 March 1944 for a short time, being transferred to 350 Sqn via 13 OTU, June 1st, 1944. The Sqn left UK on December 3rd, 1944 and landed at Evere where after 4 years of exile, he saw his family back. On "Christmas" day, Jaak and "Fifi" Verpoorten departed for a mission against an armed convoy near Prüm. Strafing the convoy, an exploding truck turned Jaak's plane into a fire ball and crashed, killing him. Jaak was awaited to celebrate Christmas with his family the same evening. Few days later they were informed of his death.