Belgian buglers to bring historic tribute
Every night just before 8pm, police in the Belgian town of Ypres halt traffic at the Menin Gate war memorial.
At 8pm on the dot buglers play the Last Post, the final salute to the fallen.
It is a simple, profoundly moving tribute to those soldiers of Britain and the Commonwealth who died defending Belgium in World War I.
The ceremony began in 1928 and has been held daily since 1929, broken only during the German occupation of Ypres from 1940 to 1944.
And next week two of the buglers will bring the tradition to WA when they play the Last Post at commemorative ceremonies linking Belgium with a country that lost so many fine young men in the bloody conflict.
The famous Menin Gate was named because it marks the place where the road out of Ypres passed through the old town wall on the way to Menin in WWI.
Soldiers marched under the arch as they headed for the battlefields of the Ypres Salient and countless thousands never came back.
After the war, a memorial was built at the site to commemorate the Commonwealth soldiers killed in Belgium and who have no known grave.
The Menin Gate memorial, which records the names of 55,000 of the missing, including 6000 Australians, was unveiled in 1927.
The Belgian group was invited to WA by John Davis, of Forrestfield, who visited the gate last year for the nightly tribute with students, teachers and people associated with the Darling Range Sports College.
Another group from the school will visit the Western Front battlefields this year.
Mr Davis recently drove through Yarloop and noticed the war memorial listed 58 local men who died in WWI.
He was struck by the enormous sacrifice of one small town and saw it as a poignant reminder of the losses so many small WA communities suffered in WWI.
Believing it would benefit the group going to the battlefields this year to understand these sacrifices, Mr Davis and the college sought permission for a special Anzac Day service at the memorial.
The Belgian War Graves Commission and Last Post Association, which organises the Menin Gate ceremony, agreed to send a delegation, which will include buglers Dirk Vandekerckhove and Tonny Desodt.
They will play at a service at the college on March 21, at the State War Memorial the next day and at the Yarloop war memorial on March 23.
State RSL president Graham Edwards said the services would be a chance to repay the Last Post Association for its years of hospitality and commitment.
Mr Vandekerckhove said his grandfather served in WWI. The association buglers were, by tradition, drawn from the fire brigade and he became one in 1984 after joining the brigade.
He said the Menin Gate Last Post was a small daily thank you for the soldiers who went to Belgium.
The town remembered the fallen Australians every day, particularly on Anzac Day.
"It will be very special to play in Australia," he said.
