Pieter Dox

Dox (second from the left) in the Special Forestry Platoon in 1918[1]

Around 1914, Dox joined the Dominican Order as a novice. In 1916, despite a Belgian royal decree that only men born before 1897 could be conscripted, he was drafted to fight in the First World War.[2][3] As a member of the seminary, Dox had to serve in the medical corps, and after only a single month of training he was sent to the Western Front.[4]

He was critical of the French-speaking officers' attitude towards Flemish-speaking soldiers, and wrote letters on the subject. This led to his demotion to a penal military unit, the Special Forestry Platoon, on 30 March 1918, where he worked as a woodchopper as a form of penal labour in Orne, Normandy, France.[5][6] The military's official conclusion read: "Doubts regarding his patriotism. Has expressed hostility toward national institutes in a letter sent from neutral territory."[4][lower-alpha 1] Dox was released eight months after the Armistice of 11 November 1918, on 10 July 1919.[7]

One of his brothers, Ludovicus Gommarus, died in a German prisoner-of-war camp.[8] His parents were also held captive by the German occupiers due to his father's participation in the resistance movement.[9]

Dox took his religious vows in Ghent on 7 November 1924,[10] and moved to the Belgian Congo on 18 December 1928, to work as a missionary for the next 36 years under his priest name, Valentinus.[11]

He and his brother Frans, who was also a missionary, were killed in Watsa during the Simba rebellion on 26 November 1964.[12][13] In total, 15 Belgian missionaries were killed.[11] A square in their hometown of Lier was named after him and his brother.[14][15]