Captain LaFleur was a Belgian military medical officer in East Africa, under the command of Colonel Mathieu.
Biography[]
Early life[]
When he was a child during Christmas Eve, LaFleur was too excited to sleep and wondered what Father Christmas would bring to his home. As result, he took Christmas very seriously.[2]
World War I[]
By 1916, LaFleur[1] was a medical officer in the Belgian Army.[2] In the December of that year, LaFleur was assigned to be the doctor on the expedition across from the Belgian camp in German East Africa to Cape Lopez to pick up a shipment of machine guns, mortars and howitzers needed for the taking of Tabora.[1]
Under the leadership of Major Boucher and Captain Henri Defense (Indiana Jones), he tended to the sick among the expedition - diagnosing tropical diseases, and distributing medicine.[1]
At an Ubangi village that had been wiped out by disease, LaFleur stated that it was smallpox that had killed them, leaving only the Ubangi boy alive. While Boucher suspected smallpox when the soldiers began to get ill, LaFleur diagnosed the men as having yellow fever.[1]
When Defense alerted Boucher that the boy was in the camp, LaFleur could not prove that the boy was not a health risk to the soldiers, and so Boucher ordered that the boy be left behind.[1]
Near the end of December, LaFleur himself was taken ill with the disease, and died on Christmas Day. He was buried in a mass grave in the jungle, the first of the Belgians to die on the expedition.[1]
Legacy[]
LaFleur's death revealed later to be pointless as the shipment of weapons were sent in Europe instead of Tabora.[3] By the 1990s, Indy still remembered his death.[4]
Behind the scenes[]
Captain LaFleur was portrayed by Jacques Vincey in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episode "German East Africa, December 1916", later edited into Oganga, The Giver and Taker of Life.[1]
Appearances[]
- The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "German East Africa, December 1916" → Oganga, The Giver and Taker of Life
- German East Africa, December 1916 comic
- Trek of Doom
- The River of Death
- German East Africa, January 1917 comic (Mentioned only)
- The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Special Delivery
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "German East Africa, December 1916" → Oganga, The Giver and Taker of Life
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Trek of Doom
- ↑ The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Congo, January 1917" → Oganga, The Giver and Taker of Life
- ↑ German East Africa, January 1917 comic