Photo: Janet Brown
(Belgian flag)
Duhem
Eugene N.C.
Soldat V.D.G.
Ne a Tournai
le 29 Septembre 1885
Mort pour La Belgique
le 18 Avril 1918
The late Alec Tweddle wrote of him:
In the middle of the Churchyard is a tombstone bearing the colours of Belgium to mark the burial place of Eugene Duhem.
Eugene Napoleon Charles Duhem, was born on the 29th September 1885 at Tournai, Arrondissement de Tournai, Hainaut, Belgium.
He enlisted in 1915 in a Belgian motorised machine-gun unit and six months later was sent to the Russian front. Here he spent just over two years before taking ill and being put in hospital. Spending over seven months there, he was then posted to a supply company in Calais in November 1917.
He is next heard of as being destitute in the Union Workhouse, Newcastle. "Probably suffering from an illness contracted during the Russian campaign," he was transferred on 18th March 1918 to Morpeth Asylum where he died exactly one month later.
The mystery of why he was sent to Russia and how he came to be in Newcastle remains. In 1940, when rumour had it that the British Army had been betrayed by the Belgians, his grave was desecrated by vandals who damaged the Belgian colours; happily these have long since been restored.
His grave was visited by four Belgian soldiers (including a relative of his) a few years ago when they were stationed at Otterburn.
