Albert Crahay

Baron Albert Crahay (born June 9, 1903 in Ixelles / Elsene , † June 19, 1991 in Saint-Cézaire-sur-Siagne , Département Alpes-Maritimes , France ) was a Belgian lieutenant general who was Commander-in-Chief of the Belgian armed forces in of the Federal Republic of Germany and at the same time commanding general of the 1st Corps . In 1982 he was raised to the hereditary nobility and received the personal title of baron.

Life

Albert Crahay completed an officer training and after completing it found numerous jobs as an officer and staff officer within the army . In World War II he got after the raid of the German Wehrmacht in Belgium in captivity , from which he was freed only 1945th After the war he was during the Korean War between September 28, 1950 and November 21, 1951 as a lieutenant colonel in command of the Belgian UN command in Korea , where he was wounded by a phosphorus shell during the Battle of Imjin in April 1951 . After he was commander of the war school between 1955 and 1958, he took over the post of commander of the 16th Panzer Division between 1958 and 1959.

In 1959, Crahay replaced Charles de Cumont as Chief of Staff of the Allied Forces of NATO in Central Europe AFCENT ( Allied Forces Central Europe ) and remained in this post until 1961. Most recently, Lieutenant General Crahay was in 1961 Commander in Chief of the Belgian Armed Forces in the Federal Republic of Germany and at the same time Commanding General of the 1st Corps and exercised this function until he retired from military service in 1964.

Crahay has been honored several times for his many years of service and received, among other things, the Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold II with Palm Tree. In addition, he was a Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold and the Order of the Crown and also received the War Cross 1940 with palm , the commemorative medal for the war 1940–1945 with crossed swords, the medal for prisoners of war 1940–1945, the medal for foreign missions with the addition of Korea, the volunteer medal for Korea as well as the government medal awarded by Albert I. In addition, he received the Officer's Cross of the Legion of Merit , the Distinguished Service Cross , the Luxembourg Cross of Honor for Military Merit in Gold with Palm, the War Medal of the Republic of Korea, the UN Medal for Korea and a Presidential Unit Citation .

Web link

• Albert Crahay in ars-moriendi.be