Great post!
I'd heard about him on a Caribbean radio stations in Brooklyn, but just briefly!
No doubt a self-starter who left Jamaica and basically forced his way into the Royal Air Force system!
An island Mulatto with ambition!

A bullet hitting his spine is a bit overstated otherwise he'd never recover fully, but no doubt he'd taken a bullet from the Germans!

Interesting that he returned to Jamaica, proud of his heritage, yet given the times in Jamaica, also faced some discrimination in terms of fulfilling his career. How funny is that, eh?

Hmmmm, I wonder why the Great Black Discoverer didn't tell us about his Belgium connection. Gosh!

We must remember that as a colonized people in the West Indies, we were taught to be patriotic as hell and felt very British except for the melanin.
During the second world war, Island folks, mostly men, flocked to Great Britain and fought valiantly on the British side. I remember hearing of a very light-skinned family member who traveled to England and became an air force pilot. I often wonder happened to him, though for sure he survived the war. Chances are he married a white chick and now his children and grandchildren are most certainly 'white-passing'. And so it goes!