Two special services take place in Belgium next month in honour of those who gave their lives in two world wars and other conflicts.
The main ceremony takes place on 8 November at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery at Heverlee with more than 200 attendees, including VIPs from the UK Embassy and senior officials from NATO.
The cemetery is the final resting place of more than 1,000 casualties from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
For the first time at Heverlee, there will also be a Belgian guard of honour. The service will be conducted in English.
The Brussels branch of the Royal British Legion has also organised a second Act of Remembrance ceremony, this one in French, in Namur on the same day.
The three Belgian branches of the RBL joined forces in Antwerp on 17 October to launch the 2026 Poppy Appeal with the Red Hackle Pipe Band and Highland Dancers.
A RBL spokesman said, “All are warmly welcome to attend either service. We ask people to arrive by 10.30am as the ceremonies will begin at 10.45am and last around 45 minutes.”
To tie in with Remembrance Sunday, RBL Brussels branch chair Dennis Abbott has produced a second online edition of ‘Liberation 44 and the story of the Royal British Legion ‘.
The ‘first edition’ appeared online in 2022 to mark the Brussels branch’s centenary and has now been updated with new material and pictures. The work is now available as a three-part series of free e-books for Kindles or other readers.
Abbott told this site: “I focus on the Liberation of Brussels in 1944, as well as key figures in the branch’s history, from the Battle of Britain hero who was banished to avoid a Royal scandal, the spies and Special Operations Executive saboteurs parachuted behind enemy lines in the Second World War, and the soldiers who stayed here to marry their Belgian sweethearts.
“The underlying story throughout is the special relationship built up over more than a century between Belgium and Britain.It takes a year-by-year, month-by-month chronological approach, starting with the formation of the branch in 1922. My son Callum designed the covers for the three e-books.”
Links to the e-book series: https://branches.britishlegion.org.uk/branches/brussels-branch/history/brussels-branch-a-100-year-history/
- photo credit: CWGC
