Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial

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Beaumont Hamel, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial

Beaumont Hamel, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial

From remote villages
Tread softly here

From remote villages

Just inside the entrance to the Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, on the D73 from Thiepval to Auchonvillers, is an echo of the Gallipoli campaign of 1915 – the 29th Division Memorial. Many Australians, who are very conscious of the events of 25 April 1915 around Anzac Cove, know little about the battalions of this regular British Army division. The original Anzacs, however, were very conscious of just who these men were and what they achieved on 25 April 1915 during their landings at Helles on the southern tip of the Gallipoli peninsula. In his first volume of the Story of Anzac, Charles Bean, Australia’s official history of the Gallipoli campaign, wrote:

A brilliant despatch … published a few days after the Landing, brought the efforts of these young nations Australia, New Zealand before the world in such a manner that some speak to this day as if the landings were an affair of Australasian troops alone, and the unsurpassable heroism of the 29th Division, amid even heavier difficulties, has sometimes … been forgotten.

Charles Bean, The Story of Anzac, The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Vol II, Sydney, 1938, p.605

Entrance, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

29th British Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Park. [DVA]

Plaque, 29th British Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Memorial Park. [DVA]

On 1 July 1916, the men of the 29th Division faced difficulties every bit as fearsome as those they had encountered on the beaches of Gallipoli. Serving with the division was one of the only two overseas British Empire units to be involved in the attack on the first day of the Battle of the Somme – the Newfoundland Regiment.

Visitor Centre, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Newfoundland at this time was a self–governing Dominion of the British Empire and not part of Canada. The outbreak of war in 1914, very like Australia, led the Newfoundland government to recruit a force for service with the British Army. Soon enough men had volunteered that a whole battalion was formed:

Recruits came in from all over the island and from every occupation: fisherman, sailors, school–teachers, lumbermen, office workers and many others. Some came from remote villages and had never even attended a school.

Martin Middlebrook, The First Day on the Somme, London, 1977, p.21

Newfoundland soldiers, no date. [PANL F–40–2, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador]

Soon they sailed on a foul–smelling steamer called the Florizel with the first convoy to bring Canadian troops to the United Kingdom. In September 1915, they joined the 29th Division serving at Suvla, Gallipoli, where they were not made all that welcome by the British regular soldiers who regarded them as another batch of ‘civilians’. Although they were involved in no major actions, the Newfoundlanders took losses on Gallipoli – 30 were killed in action or died of wounds and ten died of disease. The unit was among the last to be evacuated from Suvla on 19–20 December 1915 and in January 1916 the Newfoundlanders formed part of the rearguard for the British evacuation of Helles.

On 1 July 1916, the opening attacks of the 29th Division at the Battle of the Somme failed to seize the German lines on this part of the battlefield. Beyond the entrance to the Newfoundland Park is a large open area of countryside left just as it was on that day with all its trench lines and shell holes. From the elevated walkway beside the Caribou statue one can look out on this old battleground and try to imagine the noise and action of that morning. After the initial failure, in mid–morning the 29th Division ordered into the attack two of its reserve units – the 1st Battalion Essex Regiment and the Newfoundland Battalion. At that point no–one knew whether or not any of the 8 battalions which had taken part in the initial assault had actually reached the German lines. Tragedy now overtook the Newfoundlanders.

Explosion of a British mine on Hawthorn Ridge, Beaumont Hamel, just before the attack by the 29th British Division on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916. [AWM H08370]

Caribou, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

From the reserve trenches to the old front line was a distance of about 275 metres. All the communication trenches to the front were already blocked with masses of wounded and other troops. The Newfoundlanders, however, had been told that their attack was urgent so they left their trenches, roughly behind where the Caribou Memorial now stands, and advanced to the right over open countryside towards the front line in the face of concentrated German machine gun fire. Even before they got to no–man’s–land they had to make their way through narrow gaps in British barbed wire and here they naturally bunched up. After the battle, the bodies of 69 Newfoundlanders were found in one of these gaps. The remnant of the battalion reached no–man’s–land and struggled on but none of them got far. To the right from the Caribou Memorial, out in the middle of the old battlefield, is a dead tree called the ‘Danger Tree’ around which many of the Newfoundlanders fell that day. Few of them made it beyond that point. Private F H Cameron, 1st Kings Own Scottish Borderers, saw them die:

On came the Newfoundlanders, a great body of men, but the fire intensified and they were wiped out in front of my eyes. I cursed the generals for their useless slaughter, they seemed to have no idea what was going on.

Cameron, quoted in Martin Middlebrook, The First Day on the Somme, London, 1977, p.189

The ‘Danger Tree’, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial looking over the preserved trenches towards Y Ravine Cemetery. The Newfoundlanders tried to advance in this area on 1 July 1916. [DVA]

Visitor, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Woodland, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

British historian Martin Middlebrook, estimates that 91 percent of those Newfoundlanders who attacked were either killed or wounded and concludes that ‘rarely can a battalion have been so completely smashed in such a short time’. Of the 778 men of the Newfoundland Regiment who went into action on 1 July 1916 only 68 answered the roll call at the end of the day. A Newfoundland religious publication wrote of the effect of 1 July 1916 in Newfoundland:

Barbed wire at Beaumont Hamel, 1916. [PANL NA–2732, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador]

Many a home has been darkened with the shadow of bereavement as the Casualty List, day by day has flashed across the ocean. The sympathy of the whole community has gone forth, both to the brave Lads who have suffered, and to their anxious and sorrowing relatives at home. The gloom of these dark days, however, will be lightened up by the glorious heroism, which the Regiment displayed, and the glory it has achieved both for itself and the old Colony which it proudly represents.

Diocesan Magazine 124, quoted in ‘Newfoundland and the Great War’ at http://www.heritage.nf.ca/greatwar/articles/somme.html

Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial looking over the preserved trenches towards Y Ravine Cemetery. [DVA]

Preserved trench, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Looking from the ‘Danger Tree’ towards Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Preserved trenches, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

From remote villages
Tread softly here

Beaumont Hamel, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial

From remote villages

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