SS-Obersturmführer Jacques Leroy

Jacques Leroy, on the left of the photo, after having lost his right arm and right eye in the battle for the Cherkassy Pocket (he wears a glass eye). On the right is his younger brother Claude Leroy, then 17, who would also join the Waffen-SS “Wallonien” Division and be killed in action, along with hundreds of other European volunteers, in March 1945 in the fighting for the Oder River Bridgehead

Jacques Leroy was born on 10 September 1924 in Binden, Belgium. In 1943 he joined the 5.SS-Sturmbrigade “Wallonie” to battle communism on the Eastern Front. His two brothers would follow suit in the next year for the same reason. They saw the Soviet Red Terror as the greatest threat to Western Civilization. After completing an officer’s training course, SS-Untersturmführer Jacques Leroy arrived on the southern part of the Eastern Front with the “Wallonie” Assault Brigade in November 1944. During the difficult battle to escape from the encirclement around Cherkassy in February 1944, SS-Ustuf. Leroy was severely wounded, losing both his right arm and right eye. Fortunately his comrades were able to assist him out to safety.

Following an extensive convalescence, Leroy returned to his old unit, which was now the 28th SS Freiwilligen Panzergrenadier Division “Wallonien” and in early 1945 he accompanied the “Wallonien” battlegroup, (SS Regiments 69 and 70 and SS Artillery Detachment 28) to the Pomeranian front where he was to serve as a liaison officer between the headquarters staff and the combat elements and was not supposed to see action. However after the I. Battalion of SS Grenadier Reg. 69 lost its commander and sustained heavy losses, the now SS-Obersturmfürer Leroy assumed command of the unit and personally led it in several fierce close-combat engagements.

In March 1945, with a task force of 40 surviving members of the battalion, Jacques Leroy led them in the defense of Altdamm at the mouth of the Oder River. For three days and nights this band of Walloon volunteers held off sizable enemy assaults, even turning back an attack by 19 Red tanks on 17 March 1945, destroying many of them in the process. When they were finally relieved, only 8 of the defenders were still alive; 32 of them had been killed in action, including Jacques Leroy’s younger brother Claude. His other brother, a platoon leader, would fall in defense of the Finkenwalde railroad station, three days before the Soviet offensive on the Oder sector temporarily halted.

On 20 April 1945, SS-Ostuf. Jacques Leroy was decorated with the Knight’s Cross to the Iron Cross for his personal heroism and the performance of his command at the Altdamm Bridgehead in March 1945. At the end of the war he went into British captivity and was soon transported back to Belgium to face a long imprisonment and much ill-treatment at the hands of the new leftist Belgian authorities. Deprived of his basic rights in Belgium, Leroy moved as soon as he could to Bavaria and became a German citizen.

The after effects of his severe war wounds would plague him for the rest of his life. In 1992 he had to seek the assistance of state provided medical care. It was soon obvious that the doctor sent to him was actually more interested in making a “political statement” than in helping him. This individual immediately accused him of “fighting against his country”, to which Leroy replied: “That was not the case, I only fought against Bolshevism!” The physician responded by saying: “I hope you are now as much an anti-Nazi as you were an anti-Bolshevik.” Jacques Leroy was too astounded to respond to this as he only sought medical help and not a political confrontation from an expert “care giver”. In any event he always remained true to his comrades and was always proud of his service in the Waffen-SS.

Source :
'Siegrunen 80' by Richard Landwehr