30,000th Last Post resounds across the world

Fire stations around the world held a minute’s silence on Thursday at 20.00 Belgian time, to mark the 30,000th Last Post ceremony taking place at that moment under the Menin Gate in Ypres. The worldwide commemoration of the fallen in the First World War was followed by a special edition of the ceremony in Ypres. 

The special occasion, titled A Tribute to the Tribute, was organised by Belgian stage and screen actor Wim Opbrouck. “We wanted to organise a moment of worldwide unity for the fallen soldiers,” he said, “and eventually thought of watching the Last Post together, with live connections across the entire world.”

Screens were set up in about 220 participating fire stations and other locations around the world – “in Belgium, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines” and other locations, Opbrouck told the magazine Goesting. “In Australia, even young people found it no problem to get up in the middle of the night to take part.”

The Last Post ceremony started in 1928 and has taken place every day since then, apart from a period between 1940 and 1944 when Belgium was under German occupation. The ceremony during that period continued, however, at Brookwood Cemetery in England. When Polish forces liberated Ypres in 1944, the ceremony resumed, even though fighting was still going on nearby.

The event in Ypres was attended by many national and international dignitaries, including Queen Mathilde, Flemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois, federal defence minister Steven Vandeput and speaker of the national parliament Siegfried Bracke. It was followed later by the laying of a wreath in the city cemetery on the grave of Pierre Henri Van den Braembussche, founder of the Last Post Association, which organises the nightly ceremony.

Earlier in the evening, Jan Peumans, speaker of the Flemish parliament, took part in a special Last Post ceremony in Berlin, attended by the German president Joachim Gauck. 

Photo by Kurt Desplenter/BELGA