Huge The Hague turnout for parade Irene Brigade

Dutch war veterans return

THE HAGUE - A huge crowd recently watched a parade through part of the city by veterans of the famed Princess Irene Brigade. Reviewing the parade was Princess Irene, who lent her name to the World War II Dutch army unit.

The Brigade was formed in England and made up of Dutch soldiers and recruits who had fled to England after the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. Others who joined the unit were volunteers from Dutch emigrant families in North and South America and elsewhere.

The unit under British command became a full-fledged brigade during the war. It landed in Normandy just after D-Day and fought alongside other Allied forces in France and Belgium, before arriving in the Netherlands in September 1944.

The Dutch veterans, many of whom wore the orange invasion braid on their uniforms, signifying that they landed in Normandy in June 1944, reveled in the attention given them by spectators.