Two brothers from Temse, Edward (1895) and Frans Van Raemdonck (1897) enlisted as war volunteers at the outbreak of the First World War.

While their letters home in 1914 still end with the words ‘Long live Belgium’, from late 1915 Frans' letters in particular are an indictment of the injustice done to the Flemish people at the front. By the end of 1916, both are members of Flemish study circles and start collaborating on the front magazine ‘Onze Temschenaars’.

On the night of 25-26 March 1917, the 24th Line Regiment, Frans and Edward's regiment, carried out a raid on the German positions near the Stampkot (a hamlet of Steenstrate). The story goes that Frans does not show up after the raid, whereupon Edward goes to find his brother in the no-man's land. Neither returns.

It is not until 12 April that a salvage patrol finds the bodies of Edward and Frans, along with those of Amé Fiévez, a Walloon soldier from Antoing. As the bodies are already too decomposed and the German firing line is too close, they decide to bury them on the spot. The patrol is taken under fire by the Germans and only the following evening can another group carry out the task.

The story that the two brothers died in each other's arms goes back to Oscar Dambre. Dambre wrote the following in an article on 12 April, at a time when the brothers' bodies had not yet been found: ‘They would not return one without the other, even if they had to die in each other’s arms’.

At the end of April, Dambre publishes again about the two brothers. And again he uses the same symbolism: ‘... two brothers lying in each other's arms for eternity...’. Dambre thus conceals the presence of Amé Fiévez.

Clemens De Landstheer, the two brothers' cousin, reads Dambre's text, contacts him and then publishes the text in his own front page “Onze Temschenaars”, accompanied by Joe English's pen drawing “Brotherly Love”. That the brothers ‘died in each other's arms’ thus becomes an established fact for all who have seen this drawing.

But this turns out to be a myth. Witnesses had clearly indicated that Frans would have died even closer to Amé Fiévez. But because of the highly symbolic value of brotherly love, this story, under the impetus of Clemens De Landtsheer, is being kept quiet.

For decades to come, these different versions would be the subject of fierce polemics.

During the 13th Yser Pilgrimage, on 21 August 1932, brothers Frans and Edward Van Raemdonck and Amé Fiévez were reburied in the crypt of the Yser Tower. A year later, on Saturday 19 August 1933, on the eve of the 14th Yser Pilgrimage, this memorial was unveiled. It was designed by painter Karel De Bondt with concrete fragments taken from the German ‘Stampkot’ scaffolding.

Since 1 July 2009, it has been a protected monument.