Henk Walaardt Sacré

Paul Hendrik "Henk" Walaardt Sacré (11 October 1873[1] – 1949) was a Dutch military engineer and aviator born in Doetinchem.

His father, Lodewijk Ægidius Walaardt Sacré, was a navy officer.[2][3] In 1889 he was accepted into the Royal Military Academy, where he became a military engineer.[2] In 1894 he finished his education and was made second lieutenant, afterwards serving with the engineer corps in Utrecht.[2] In 1898 he became a staff officer on the 1st Engineering-Commandement in Utrecht, later moving to Breda where he was promoted to lieutenant and in 1905 to captain.[2] In 1899, he married Marie Clelie Gertrude Bake but had no children.[2] In 1907 he was made commander of a regiment and in 1908 he got the ancillary position of commanding the Air Force of his regiment and the ballons used for artillery practice.[2] He was also a member of the main board of the Dutch Association for Aviation.[2] Deputy chief of the general staff Cornelis Snijders requested him to specialize in military aviation, in 1909 this was made his fulltime job.[2] He studied the organization of the balloon force, read modern aviation literature and studied abroad, attaining his brevet as balloon commandant in Germany and his pilots license in France.[2] He used his knowledge to schools air balloon officers for the Dutch Army.[2] When in 1910 the Military Aviation Commission was founded Sacré became both member and secretary.[2] In July 1913 the Military Aviation Branch was created,[2] stationed at Soesterberg,[4] and Walaardt Sacré was made its first commander.[4][5] Under Walaardt Sacre’s leadership the branch expanded to 650 men and 7 airfields.[2] In 1917 he is promoted to major.[2] As he was to be replaced as leader of the Aviation Branch he left the army in 1919 and joined the Air Transport Service of the Netherlands-English Technical Trading Society[6] In 1922 Walaardt Sacré founded N.V. Nationale Vliegtuig-Industrie in order to break up the monopoly of Anton Fokker but by 1926 the firm was closed.[2] His next project was setting up a commercial flight rout between the Americas and the Netherlands, after the Hindenburg Disaster these plans were permanently shelved.[2] He was also a member of the State Commission on Aviation, an advisory body of the Dutch government, from 1919 to 1930.[2]

Walaardt Sacré Park bears his name.[7]