Plaque to the crew of Fairey Battle L5514 103 Sqn

At the end of May 1940, the Royal Air Force received information about a meeting of about 20 Luftwaffe officers at the Castle of Roumont in Ochamps (not to be confused with the municipality of Roumont, which is more northerly). In the May days of 1940 there was an improvised Luftwaffe airfield at Ochamps, which the Junkers Ju 87B of III./StG 2, among others, made use of for a few days. On 26 May 1940, when the RAF attacked the castle, as far as we know, there was no longer a Luftwaffe unit at Ochamps airfield. The RAF sent four Fairey Battles from 103 Squadron to bomb the castle. The German air superiority and the presence of numerous anti-aircraft defenses made the mission more of a suicide mission and the result was something like this: one aircraft (L5515) made an emergency landing at Chalons near Reims after being hit by flak, a second (serial unknown) made it to its home base but was so damaged that it had to be written off. A third aircraft of the formation crashed on the hamlet of Botassart of Bouillon. It was serial L5514 with on board the pilot F/L James N Leyden, the observer Sgt Eric G Hayward and the radio operator/gunner Sgt William F Hubbard. The pilot was taken prisoner of war while the two others lost their lives; they now rest in the cemetery at Ucimont church.

In May 2015, four commemorative plaques were placed in Bouillon for the crews of four Fairey Battles that landed on the territory of this municipality. One of these plaques commemorates the crew of L5514. It stands on the viewpoint 'Le Tombeau du Géant' in the hamlet of Botassart.

There are many places of interest in Botassart.

At the entrance of the village of Botassart, known for its famous view of the tomb of the giant, there is a white stone monument with a statue of the Virgin Mary, which reads in a halo: "I am the Immaculate Conception". This Maria monument was erected around 1935: the villagers moved the large white stones from their fields to erect this monument. The Virgin Mary statue was replaced in the 1990s, after the previous one was broken by a storm.

Viewpoint "Tombeau du géant", completely redesigned in 2020.

Chapel of the Immaculate Conception.

Memorial to a Corporal Paracommanco from Botassart who died in Somalia in 1993.

An old public oven.

2 km further, in Ucimont, of which Botassart used to be a part, there is the "Musée des tools d'autrefois", an open-air museum that illustrates the various activities in the forest through wooden characters (in the "lavoir", accessible to the public).

Willem Vandenameele