The Regiment Returns to Beaumont Hamel - By His Honour Edward Roberts, Lieutenant-Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador
On July 1, 1916, at the height of the First World War, the Newfoundland Regiment (later renamed Royal Newfoundland Regiment) valiantly went into battle at Beaumont Hamel. Despite its efforts, more than 700 members were killed or wounded and only 68 answered roll call the next day. That battle holds special significance for an institution that was built as a living memorial to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who died during the First World War. Ever since then, Memorial has marked sombre occasions such as July 1 and Nov. 11 with particular reverence, paying tribute to veterans and commemorating their actions, and ensuring younger generations of university graduates realize why the university's name is so important. This past summer, Memorial president Dr. Axel Meisen and Chancellor John Crosbie (LLD '99) travelled to Beaumont Hamel to commemorate that fateful battle. Lt.-Gov. Edward Roberts (MA '06, LLD '03), former Chair of Memorial's Board of Regents and the Royal Newfoundland Regiment's honorary colonel, was also there and he recounts for Luminus magazine his participation in the sombre anniversary ceremonies held in France this past summer.
2006 marked the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Beaumont Hamel, the day when the men of the Newfoundland Regiment gave their comrades in the British Army — and all who believe in freedom — an example of heroism and devotion to duty that can never be excelled. Beaumont Hamel was only one of the battles in which the regiment fought. But it is the best- known because of the horrible toll of casualties. The precise figures may never be known, but nobody has ever denied that the attack was a catastrophe. Nine out of every 10 men in the battalion who went over the top that morning were struck down. Every officer was killed or wounded.
This past July, the entire regiment stood again on the battlefield — as a unit — for the first time since the first of July, 1916. I was there with them, as their honorary colonel. We called the return to northern France and Belgium a pilgrimage. The full regiment paraded at each of the caribou memorials which honour those who fought there — Gueudecourt, Masnières, Monchy-le-Preux, Kortrijk (Courtrai) and Beaumont Hamel itself. We visited the now peaceful farmland in Flanders where Tommy Ricketts won the Victoria Cross, Stanley Newman the Military Cross and Matthew Brazil the Distinguished Conduct Medal. The week was extraordinarily busy. Every minute was filled with pride and emotion. But three moments etched themselves indelibly in my memory.
The first was the evening that the regiment marched through the Menin Gate in Ypres. The First War Regiment was there in July and August and September 1916, just after Beaumont Hamel, and again in the fall of 1917, on their way to fight in what became known as the Battle of Poelcappelle. They were there for the third time in the fall of 1918, in the forefront of the Allied march to victory. Our men marched through the gate on each occasion.
The Menin Gate is an incredibly powerful memorial, which brings home the horror of the Great War as does nothing else among all the memorials and all the battlefields. It marks the start of the road from Ypres to Menin. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Indian and Newfoundland soldiers marched down that road and on into the Ypres Salient. The gate itself was all but destroyed during the war, but it was afterwards rebuilt as a memorial. The names of 55,000 men are inscribed on it. The list does not include all those who died in the Salient. Those 55,000 names are those of the soldiers who have no known grave. They are among the 200,000 soldiers killed on the Western Front whose last resting places are known only to God.
Every night since the gate was dedicated as a memorial (except during the Second World War) the buglers of the Ypres Fire Department play the Last Post, and wreaths are laid. Rain or shine, snow or sleet — the solemn notes are heard. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment, our regiment, was given the signal honour of being asked to parade through the gate at the nightly ceremony. It was a deeply moving experience.
The second memorable moment came when we honoured one of the most cherished traditions of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment — the Mess Dinner held each year on June 30, the eve of Beaumont Hamel. This year, for the first time, we held it at the battlefield itself — on the very ground that the Newfoundlanders crossed 90 years ago, almost to the very hour they did so. We were between St. John's Road — the trench from which the men of the regiment began their advance — and the British front line on July 1. Our colonel-in-chief, Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, was there; as were Premier Danny Williams (BA '69); and Canada's senior soldier, General Rick Hillier (B.Sc.'76), chief of the Defence Staff and a Newfoundlander; together with the officers and men of the regiment and our band, and many friends of the regiment. One of the great moments of my life was to give the toast to the regiment, as we all stood late that night and faced the floodlit caribou.
The morning of July 1 was a lovely day — hot, sunny and almost without wind. So was July 1, 1916, when the Newfoundlanders attacked. The men and women of today's regiment marched unto the field proudly and smartly, to the jaunty notes of “The Banks of Newfoundland,” the regiment's quick march now as it was then. The men of the 1914-18 regiment marched to it when they left St. John's in October 1914, and they marched to it in the victory parade through the streets of London in May 1919. Our soldiers halted before the caribou, and the solemn ceremonies began. I know that every man and woman on parade was overwhelmed at the realization that he or she stood where the men of the First World War regiment stood that day. And I know that every one of us was filled with gratitude that we were given the opportunity to do so. There is no Newfoundlander, no Labradorian, who would not have shared those emotions, had he or she been there with us. I have always been proud to be a Newfoundlander. But never more so than that day at Beaumont Hamel. It was the experience of a lifetime.
We were there this year on the eve of July 1, 90 years after they were. We were there to remember them, and we were there to honour them. And the next morning, we honoured them again, by standing where they stood. That was the third moment we shall remember always.
We shall never know why they did it. Why did they? I believe they fought — as generations before them had done, and as those who followed them did — first for their comrades, and then for their families and for their homes. They believed that a man should do his duty, and they did theirs.
That, I believe, was the real significance of our pilgrimage. That is why we went to France and to Belgium, and held solemn ceremonies at each of the caribou memorials. The men who served under the regiment's colours in the First World War were brave and honourable soldiers, an example to us all. But they, and their regiment, were also tangible symbols of their island home — the land we know today as the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The regiment was Newfoundland's first national effort, the first time that we as a people ever joined together in one common effort for one common purpose.
The Royal Newfoundland Regiment lives on as a unit of the Canadian Army. Its colours proudly bear the battle honours won on that battlefield, and so many others, by those men. The great-grandsons and great-granddaughters of those who won those laurels now serve proudly throughout the world under Canada's red maple leaf. We have built a magnificent university as a memorial to them and to all who fought for their country — our country. There can be no more fitting tribute to all who served Newfoundland, and now Canada, than an institution dedicated to education and to our young people.
The years may have dimmed our recollections, but not our determination to honour the memory of those who were there 90 years ago, and to stand for the cause for which they stood.
Truly, they were “Better than the Best.”
Editor's Note: Look for the DVD, The Return of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment: The Battle of Beaumont Hamel Remembered, in the bookstore at MUN.