Ronald Ooms

Ronald Ooms was born on 31 December 1978 in Geel, Belgium. A city situated between Antwerp in the west, Hasselt in the East and Eindhoven in the Netherlands in the north.

His interest in World War 2 history started when he had to do an assignment as a little boy in grammar school, where he had to interview his grandparents about the Belgian occupation in the 1940's.

Nowadays he travels to historic places and/or commemorative events whenever he can.

As a former youth worker he integrated a lot of WW2-history in some of his activities, such as visits to concentration camps, museums, battlefields and showing war movies. After a couple of years managing an indoorkarting racing circuit he started work for the Red Cross.

Some years ago he started his career as a journalist for a local newspaper. Since February 2013 he is contracted as a freelance journalist for Gazet van Antwerpen, one of the biggest newspapers of Belgium. And since early 2015 he reports on Formule 1 racing for Belgian's Autosport website.

Thanks to his close friendship with WW2-veteran Clancy Lyall, of the famous Band of Brothers, he was able to write a book about the life of this paratrooper called 'Silver Eagle: the official biography of Band of Brothers veteran Clancy Lyall. Sadly Clancy passed away at the age of 86 in 2012 and didn't see the final result of the book. "It's a shame my friend Clancy passed away before the release of this book... his book", the author said. "But I hope he is proud that it finally happened. I'm glad he was able to read the manuscript and made changes into it before he made his final jump. With this book he will live on forever..."

Ooms was also nominated for Culture Person of the Year 2013 during the annual Culture Prize Awards in his hometown of Geel.

Ronald hopes to write more books in the future, not only about people's experiences during the war but also about Formula 1 racing, another one of his big passions.

Ronald Ooms is available for interviews, book signings, writing articles and guest blogs