Professional airforce pilot Wachtmeester (Flight Sergeant) Jaap (Jackie) van Zuylen used to be a pre-war flightinstructor at the training base De Vlijt, on the Dutch island of Texel, prior to joining the 1st JaVA (fighter squadron) which was stationed at De Kooy airbase in Den Helder during the German invasion.As a pre-war instructor, Van Zuylen was involved in an amusing incident with a trainee during an exercise take-off. Sitting in the rear-seat of the Koolhoven FK-51 trainer, Van Zuylen determined that the trainee-pilot would not make the end of the runway, prior to take-off, and decided to bail out during acceleration, yet still on the ground, and at a speed of about 70 knots. After this unfortunate decision it turned out that he had broken both his legs, whilst the trainee-pilot had landed brilliantly on top of the trees at the end of the runway and was, unharmed, rescued by the local fire-brigade.
During the first hours of the German invasion at 10 May 1940, Van Zuylen, flying the Fokker D-21 fighter with registration 223, was part of a three-plane flight patrol over Noord-Holland province, when he failed to receive his flight commander's instruction to return to base after a joint chase of a German He-111 bomber, flying South. (At that time, only the leader's aircraft was provided with radio). It is told later that Van Zuylen, after this unfortunate miscommunication, all by himself, endeavoured to overcome a dogfight with two other He-111's. It is not known for certain what happenend next, but observers from the ground later stated that a Dutch Fokker D-21 fighter misteriously crossed an ongoing dogfight between other planes, constantly making large radius turns, however not seeming to fire his weapons. In the end, the fighter crashed at the Wassenaarse Slag (dunes near Wassenaar, The Hague). It is believed that Van Zuylen was killed behind the stick during his prior confrontation with the He-111's, and incidently frooze his hands and feet in such a position with stick and rudder that the plane continued to fly a certain repeated course until it crashed, probably due to a lack of fuel.
Van Zuylen was only buried after the May-war, due to the fact that his plane crashed into an area of high German activity which was a cause of misdrops of German Fallschirmjäger (airbornes and airlanding troops) during the first hours of the war. His 1940-grave (photo)
in Wassenaar became a shrine, decorated with the propellor of his Fokker, his flying helmet and a part of the fuselage showing the plane's registration number 223. In the ninetees his remains were re-buried at the Grebbeberg War Cemetery in Rhenen.
