Danish WW2 Pilots

Flt Lt Olaf Francis Poulsen

(1911 - 1950)

Olaf F. Poulsen was born in Ghent in Belgium in 1911, by a Danish father. He served in the Royal Air Force in England, Burma and Africa during the Second World War.

Olaf Francis Poulsen was born on 25 May 1911 in Ghent, the son of shipowner Hans Christian Poulsen and Valentine Valine Antoinette Poulsen (née de Baerdemaecker). His paternal grandfather was the Danish actor Olaf Rye Poulsen.[1] Poulsen’s maternal grandfather founded the shipping company V. & L. De Baerdemaecker in Ghent in 1903, and in 1924 his father took over the management of the company.

Poulsen was educated in Belgium and Switzerland, and received further education at business schools in Belgium, England and Sweden before joining the family business.[2] In 1937, he married the British socialite Elizabeth Narcissa Maria Paynter, the daughter of Lt Col. Camborne H. Paynter, in St Buryan, Cornwall.[3] The couple divorced at some point during the war.[4]

Flt Lt Olaf Francis Poulsen in his uniform.
Flt Lt Olaf Francis Poulsen in his uniform.

In Royal Air Force service

Early in the war Poulsen escaped to England where he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He seems to have been trained as a pilot. In March 1941, he was attached to 16 Elementary Flying Training School at RAF Derby.[5] Poulsen served in England, Burma and Africa during the war.[6] Poulsen served as an intelligence officer. The most specific reference to the nature of his work during the war is the citation, when he became a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE), which read:

in recognition of meritorious service to the allied cause during the war, in his capacity of Foreign Intelligence Officer, attached to the Special Branch, Criminal Investigation Department.[7]

Poulsen married Lorna E. D. Wigg (née Donstable) in 1946.[8] The couple had met in India. Poulsen’s father died in 1948 and he took over the management of the family firm.[9] Poulsen was killed in an accident in Beaulieu-sur-Mer near Nice on 11 April 1950.[10]

Endnotes

[1] DNA: Parish registration, The Danish Church in Ghent.

[2] Belgien, Danmarksposten, May 1950.

[3] Ancestry: England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005.

[4] Mrs Poulsen was re-admitted to British Nationality on 7 October 1946. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/37798/page/5793.

[5] DNA: 10940, Det danske Råd i London, Rekrutteringskontoret.

[6] Belgien, Danmarksposten, May 1950.

[7] Ancker, P. E. (2001). De danske militære flyverstyrkers udvikling 2, 1 1940 - 1945, p. 213.

[8] Ancestry: England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005.

[9] Belgien, Danmarksposten, May 1950.

[10] DNA: Parish registration, The Danish Church in Ghent.