The two historic lions that have guarded the entrance to the Australian War Memorial since their restoration in 1991 are on the prowl once more. They flew out of Canberra on board an RAAF transport en route for Belgium on Friday morning.
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Originally commissioned for the Great Cloth Hall at Ypres, the lions were moved to the historic Menin Gate leading out of the Belgian city in the late 19th century.
During World War 1 they stood on either side of the road hundreds of thousands of Australian and other Commonwealth soldiers marched down on their way to the battles of Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle and Passchendaele.
6,169 of the more than 13,500 Australian soldiers who died disappeared without a trace. They were either blown to smithereens or sucked down into the bottomless bog the fields of Flanders had become.
Australian War Memorial director, Dr Brendan Nelson, initiated the offer to loan the lions back to the Belgians to mark the centenary of the Third Battle of Ypres while he was Australia's ambassador to NATO, the European Union and Belgium in 2010.
"I never expected to be the person who would be responsible for carrying it (the loan) through to fruition," he said.
Dr Nelson believes the lions are amongst the most poignant and significant items in the AWM collection.
"I do (feel moved to weep) when I touch them," he said. "I've seen the photographs of the lions in situ before the war and I've seen images of them during the war. We've got a photograph of three soldiers standing in front of one them that is still in place but has clearly been knocked around.
"For at least 13,500 Australians the last thing they saw before they left any resemblance of humanity in Ypres was these lions."
Because the gate was a choke point through which all allied reinforcements had to pass the area was under constant German bombardment.
By the end of the war both statues had been badly damaged. In 1936 they were gifted to Australia by the Burgomaster of Ypres.
They were repaired by Polish-born sculptor Kaisimiers L. Zywusko in the 1980s and have been on display at the AWM since 1991.
This is the second trip the lions have made in the last three years. The AWM lent them to Canada for its "Iron Harvest" exhibition in 2014.
The lions will be displayed in their original positions on Menin Road before heading back to Australia by the end of the year.
