Independent Belgian Brigade
The Independent Belgian Brigade was a Belgian and Luxembourg military unit in the Free Belgian forces during World War II, commonly known as the Piron Brigade (Brigade Piron) after its commanding officer Jean-Baptiste Piron. It saw action in Western Europe and participated in the Battle of Normandy, the Liberation of Belgium, and fighting in the Netherlands over 1944-1945.
Brigade Piron originated in 1940, with hundreds of Belgian soldiers who had escaped to Britain, as had the Belgian Government. A new command of the Belgian Army, under Lieutenant-General Victor van Strydonck de Burkel, was created in Tenby on 25 May 1940, three days before the Belgian capitulation. Van Strydonck de Burkel became commander of the Belgian Forces in Great Britain in June 1940 and in the same month, a Belgian Minister (Jaspar) called upon all Belgians to come to Britain to continue fighting.
At the end of July 1940 there were 462 men in the Belgian Forces in exile; the arrival of many Belgians allowed the creation of several military units. The troops were trained in Great Britain and Canada and in 1942, Major Jean-Baptiste Piron arrived in Scotland where he quickly joined the army staff, with the responsibility of improving the training of Belgian troops. In an artillery competition, the Belgian battery came first. The Belgian Forces in Britain were officially made available to the Allies on 4 June 1942. By the end of the year the army had been restructured, including the creation of the 1st Belgian Brigade, under the command of Major Piron, with a mix of infantry, artillery and reconnaissance units. Troop training continued through 1943 and landing exercises were conducted in early 1944. A Luxembourgish unit was assigned to Brigade Piron in March, forming an artillery troop. In total about 116 luxembourgers served in the unit.[1] Because the Belgians had arrived from around the world, thirty-three languages were spoken in the Brigade in 1944.[citation needed]
The D-Day landings took place on 6 June 1944 without Brigade Piron, to the great disappointment of its 2,200 men but the British preferred to reserve them for the liberation of Belgium. (This policy was applied to all of the smaller national military contingents, which were expected to form the basis of post-war armies and for whom it would have been difficult to find replacements for casualties.) Piron lobbied the Belgian government in exile, which requested the British Government to send the Belgian troops to the front, to reverse the declining morale of those troops.
On 29 July 1944, the Brigade was ordered to be ready to move. Its first units arrived in Normandy on 30 July and the main body arrived at Arromanches and Courseulles on 8 August, before the end of the Battle of Normandy.[citation needed] The Brigade operated under the command of the British 6th Airborne Division (Major General Gale), which was part of the First Canadian Army.[2] The Belgians entered active service on 9 August.[citation needed]
The Belgian Brigade participated in Operation Paddle, Clearing the Channel coast from 17 August with British and Dutch (Prinses Irene Brigade) troops of the 6th Airborne Division. Merville-Franceville-Plage was liberated in the evening, Varaville on 20 August. The Brigade's armoured vehicles were detached to assist British units. Dives-sur-Mer and Cabourg were taken on the morning of 21 August and Houlgate in the afternoon. The Brigade took Villers-sur-Mer and Deauville on 22 August, and Trouville-sur-Mer and Honfleur at the mouth of the Seine on 24 August. The bridge connecting the communes of Deauville and Trouville-sur-Mer was renamed to "Pont des Belges" and still bears a commemoration[3] to the Brigade which liberated the communes.
