Reburial Service for 4 Belgian Soldiers: Veurne

Reburial Service for 4 Belgian Soldiers: Veurne - Veurne - 01/07/2018

On July 1, 2018, 4 Belgian soldiers finally got their final resting place on the Belgian military cemetery of De Panne. During a brief ceremony in Diksmuide, the coffins with their remains were loaded into a WW1 ambulance. On the way to the cemetery there was a halt in the centre of Veurne, where the Last Post was blown and one minute's silence was observed.

The symbolism behind the Patrouillers made it all even more moving and emerged clearly in the explanation given by Lt-Colonel Rudy Baert, War Heritage Institute.
When the soldiers Pintens, Jacquet and Dethier were killed during the Battle of Diksmuide on 24 October 1914, as was often the case with the harsh circumstances, they were quickly buried in the trench or close nearby. After the fall of Diksmuide on 10 November 1914, the Belgian troops withdrew over the Yser on the left bank. A more permanent (re)burial at a cemetery wasn't possible anymore in the next four years. After WW1, after 4 years of bombardment and war violence, little was left. The temporary cemetery was 'disappeared'.
An excavation and transport to a Belgian military cemetery was not possible for the unfortunate soldiers. and a century passed...
Now, 100 years later, the soldiers were finally transferred from Diksmuide, where they gave their lives, to a Belgian military cemetery in De Panne. And that happened in an ambulance Ford-T accompanied by people in a uniform from 1918, as if that past century had not been there.
In de Panne they were handed over by 'their colleagues from then' to the soldiers of the 12-13Linieregiment, the battalion from SPA which still bears the traditions of the 12Linieregiment to which Pintens, Jacquet and Dethier belonged. So they were carried by their 'colleagues from now' until their last resting place... as it should have happened 100 years ago...

Arrival of the Ambulance