2006, Volume 99 Number 2

There was little enough to evoke the evening of July 1, 1916 at the small military base in Douai, France where The Royal Newfoundland Regiment was billeted during the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. Little enough, but enough, all the same.

On the evening of July 1, 1916, those men of the 1st Battalion Newfoundland Regiment who had survived the opening offensive of the Battle of the Somme were holding their ground in a field towards Beaumont-Hamel. Together with the 10% of the regiment left out of battle for strategic purposes (some 100 men) the ablebodied survivors were either stood to in St. James Street trench in anticipation of a German counter offensive or making hazardous excursions into No Man's Land to recover their own wounded and those of other battalions. Only 68 members of the Regiment were able to answer the next roll call. In St. John's Road trench and in the mud of No Man's Land, 104 lay dead; 139 were missing and presumed dead; 29 more would die of their wounds and another 488 casualties were suffered in the military action that marked the single most defining moment in the history of the Dominion of Newfoundland. Ever since that day, commemorating Beaumont Hamel, Newfoundlanders mourn the loss of many of the finest young men of that generation, yet, at the same time, celebrate the valour and resolution that later earned their Regiment the designation 'Royal.'

June 28, 2006: Under the dome at Menin Gate Photo: Sergeant John Walsh, 37 Canadian Brigade Group

In the early evening of July 1, 2006, wearing shorts and cut-offs the better to withstand the 42 degree heat and dense humidity, 202 of the 336 men and 36 women who form the Regiment today, along with their commanding officers, cadets, their French hosts and special guests, were gathered at Quartier Corbineau, a small military base in Douai, for a farewell barbeque. Some were lining up for beer and lukewarm rosé. Others kicked around a soccer ball, moved absently to the music of Great Big Sea that played from loudspeakers, or talked quietly while they waited for the brief formalities to begin. It was their final night in France and everyone was looking forward to going home after the experience of a lifetime.

The day itself, the night and week before, had seen very different events. At the formal Mess Dinner, held on the battlefield at Beaumont Hamel the night of June 30, members of the Regiment, their Colonel-in-Chief The Princess Royal, and other dignitaries and guests were welcomed by the Regiment's Honorary Colonel, Lt.-Gov. Edward Roberts. The occasion, rich as it was in ceremony and tradition, was not without its unplanned drama.

"The dinner was held in a canvas tent with one side of clear plastic facing the battlefield. The night was hot and dead calm," said Catherine Roberts, who was among about 120 people in attendance. "Dad was talking about that same night in 1916, and I remember his words went something like, 'the men of the Newfoundland Regiment went forth to meet their destiny...' when suddenly the sides of the tent started to flap. The thing was, there was not a breath of wind the whole night — it just seemed to come out of no-where."

"The wind suddenly coming up sent a shiver down many a back!" confirmed Arlène King, who, as director of the Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial site, was also present.

That evocative night was followed by a blistering day of rigourous discipline, rigid ceremony, and a virtually flawless performance on the part of the whole Regiment. The one misadventure that did occur was transformed into a moment of powerful symbolic impact when a soldier in the second rank immediately stepped forward to occupy the position vacated when a comrade in the first rank fell, overcome by the heat.

"That's exactly what they did back then," whispered a woman in the crowd, voicing the collective awe. "When one man went down, another took his place."

The Newfoundland Regiment's reputation for "trained and disciplined valour" was won on the battlefield at Beaumont Hamel, but it was consolidated during the following weeks, months and years when, regrouping and restored to fighting strength after their terrible loss, they went on to accumulate battle honours in the Somme and elsewhere in France and Belgium, to add to their first, won at Gallipoli. At Monchy-le-Preux, in April 1917, though suffering 485 casualties, the remnants checked a German counter-attack. Later that same year, at Masnières, near Cambrai, although outflanked, they stood their ground to save a critical situation. It was after that action that King George V conferred on the Regiment the title 'Royal.' The unique honour, only the third ever awarded by the British Army during wartime, was accorded to no other regiment in the course of that war.

The Royal Newfoundland Regiment (The R NFLD R), which dates its origins to 1795 and had played a significant role in the War of 1812, was disbanded in 1919, at the end of World War I.

Newfoundland was not asked to send an infantry unit to fight alongside the British in World War II; the toll from the First War was deemed to have been too great; no further sacrifice was required. However, over 7,000 Newfoundlanders did enlist in the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, and two artillery regiments, the 59th Heavy Regiment and the 57th (later the 166th) Field Artillery. It was not until 1949, after Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation, that The R NFLD R was remustered as an Army Reserve unit. Today, as a primary reserve infantry unit, it is part of the 37 Canadian Brigade Group headquartered in Moncton, NB. The Brigade is part of Land Forces Atlantic Area headquartered in Halifax, NS.

Their 2006 pilgrimage to France and Flanders for the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme was the result of a campaign spearheaded by the 1st Battalion’s Honorary Lieutenant Colonel, Kevin Hutchings.

"A lot of people did a lot of work to make this happen — I wish we could name them all," he said. "The Province gave the largest single cash donation — $130K — but the in-kind donations outweighed the dollars by about five to one. The Department of National Defence provided the airlift to Lille and all of the soldiers' pay and benefits for the duration. The French army provided accommodations, rations and buses. And the Belgian airforce donated the flight home. What was amazing to me was that, whenever we asked, absolutely no-one said 'no'."

June 30, 2006. Rehearsal drill, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial Photo: Sergeant John Walsh

The Memorial Day event was the culmination of two years of planning but only one week of training for the Regiment. The logistics of assembling and transporting its two battalions meant their first opportunity to prepare as a full Regiment came after their arrival in France on June 26th. During the following week, they marched in seven parades, visited all five of the Newfoundland Caribou Memorials, and paid respects in 42cemeteries at the gravesites of over 600 Newfoundlanders killed in Europe during World War I. On each grave, they placed a Newfoundland flag, and on each headstone, a small beach rock brought from home.

Despite having had only a half-day of rehearsal, the ceremony itself was a model of both performance and substance. There were tears followed by soft murmurs among the Newfoundlanders and French citizens gathered for the formalities as the Regiment marched onto the Memorial site in parade column of route.

Arlène King noted that this ceremony draws a substantial crowd every year. Expatriate Newfoundlanders, tourists, and many people from the surrounding region make it a point to be present along with the regular contingent of officials who participate in the annual formalities.

"I was both surprised and pleased to see how well-attended it usually is," she said. "But this year is an historic occasion in that it marks the first time since 1916 that the entire Newfoundland Regiment has stood on the battlefield at Beaumont Hamel."

Originally comprising 250 farmers' fields located near Beaumont-Hamel in the countryside of the Somme region, the site was purchased in lots from 1922 to 1924 by the Regiment's former padre, Father Thomas Nangle, Newfoundland's representative on the Imperial War Graves Commission. The Women's Patriotic Association raised a large portion of the $10,000 purchase price through "soup suppers and sales of work." At Nangle's insistence, the terrain was kept in its original condition as a memorial to the fallen.

Today, the trenches and ravines, together with the bodies of 200-300 known and unknown soldiers, are covered in grass and wildflowers rather than mud. But, with its three small military cemeteries and tended by a cohort of guides, it is the only such landscape amongst a myriad memorials established by different nationalities to commemorate their own great sacrifices in the Battle of the Somme. As such, it is a much-visited location, and the addition in 2001 of a Visitors Centre depicting the deeds and Newfoundland backgrounds of the soldiers has added to its interest for the general tourist. The Somme region, which benefits from this interest, has developed a substantial tourism industry focused on the yearly pilgrimages undertaken by various national patriotic organizations. It would be naïve to overlook this as a factor in the activities surrounding July 1; but it would be a mistake to think that, even 90 years later, this is the most important element, or to assume that observations end when the tourists depart. At the Menin Gate, where the names of 54,896 soldiers buried in unknown graves from the outbreak of the war to 1917 are inscribed, traffic stops every single evening of the year at 8 p.m. sharp, when the Last Post is sounded. This year The Royal Newfoundland Regiment was invited under the dome to participate in a ceremony of remembrance.

"When we marched in Masnières," said Capt. Chad Belbin, "the Mayor closed down the city for the day, and the people paraded through the streets following us. The kids waved Newfoundland, Canadian and French flags. It was overwhelming, the incredible respect and admiration that was shown us everywhere we went."

1 July 2006: At Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial Site. Photo: Corporal Gerry Mully

Above and beyond the precisely organized accommodation and transportation efforts, the unpresuming hospitality and friendliness offered by the towns and villages in the area, the relationship between the Newfoundland visitors and their French hosts is warmly reciprocal. It dates back to the early years after the War, when they first began to gather at Beaumont-Hamel to share in remembrances. The gathering was formalized on June 7, 1925 when the site, together with the other Caribou Memorials in France, was officially dedicated as a memorial park by Field Marshal Earl Douglas Haig. It was not until this year that the Caribou in Kortijk, Belgium was dedicated by the 1st Battalion’s current padre, Captain, the Reverend Shawn Sampson.

This year, too, on July 1, many French visitors sang along with the Ode to Newfoundland and many Newfoundlanders joined in singing the Marseilleise. For these participants, the Regiment seemed to symbolize much more than the sum of all factors as the soldiers and officers stood motionless in the heat beneath the Caribou Memorial while bureaucrats, politicians and royalty made the requisite speeches. They came to attention as one for inspection by Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal, who has served as the Regiment's Colonel-in-Chief since 1989. At the reception to follow, they were at ease in the company of their Colonel-in-Chief. Charming in her own earnest attention to duty above and beyond the call, she insisted on speaking with every member of the Regiment in turn, and lingered in conversation to the visible anxiety of aides de camp mindful of the royal schedule.

Canada's top soldier, General Rick Hillier, played a low-key role, taking no part in the ceremony itself. For the Regiment, it was enough that he was there. Affable and forthright, Gen. Hillier, as Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, might have been expected to participate in Canada Day celebrations in Ottawa; however, the General is also a Newfoundlander. It was a judgment call that typifies his identification with the ordinary soldier.

"Beaumont Hamel expresses both the best and the worst — young men placed in an impossible situation, knowing they were going into certain death and destruction, but going anyway," he said. "Their attention to duty had nothing to do with mindless obedience — it was about courage and brotherly love. In the end, it was about each other, and the community values they believed in."

Having joined the Canadian army as an officer with the Princess Louise's Regiment, Gen. Hillier was Commander of the Army and Commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, Afghanistan for the two years before his appointment to the military's top job in February 2005. It is easy to understand why the Canadian Forces look up to their Chief, a tall, vigorous man with a friendly smile and piercing eyes that fix upon their target with a respectful authority that brooks no nonsense.

"I'll answer one more question," he offered, signalling his aide de camp that he'd be a moment longer. And yes, he allowed, with the courteous intensity that has become the hallmark of his presence as the public face of Canada’s armed forces, it is difficult these days for the general population to see clear distinctions between peace-keeping, peace-making and active combat. Those terms are fast losing their original meanings in the new "theatre of operations" where Canadian troops are deployed, and Gen. Hillier is unambiguous when defining the challenge. "Young Newfoundlanders in the military today, both men and women, are fighting to move failed societies to stability from chaos," he said. "They're involved in rebuilding, working to provide a better future for families in those regions. In this work, they perform acts of splendid courage, and, as much as possible, maintain a refusal to accept violence as a way to settle differences. But there is no doubt that they are required to use violence when there is no other option, when other avenues are closed.

July 1, 2006. Front: HRH the Princess Royal, Colonel-in-Chief, The R NFLD R; Lt.-Gov. Edward Roberts, Hon. Col. The R NFLD R. Centre: Gen. Rick Hillier, Chief of the Defence Staff, Canadian Armed Forces Photo: Sergeant John Walsh

"Often, you have to make that call on the ground, in the situation itself," he continued. "It's my job to see that our soldiers have the tools to back them up, and equipment that provides the best possible protection in dangerous places and situations."

His job is of particular importance to The R NFLD R today, because reserve militias are liable, if not likely, to be called into action, and 30 members of the Regiment are currently training to serve as volunteers in Afghanistan. The sign-on is steadily increasing.

"My unit has 11 individuals undergoing training with Task Force 1-07 in preparation for deployment in February 2007," said Lt.-Col. William Sutherland, who commands the 2nd Battalion, headquartered in Corner Brook. "Some of those going to Afghanistan will serve in the infantryman role, others will act as staff officers or will be part of the Civil Military Cooperation Organization."

Members of today's Regiment range in age from 17 to 58, with the average age of recruits estimated at 18. Most of those at the base did indeed look very young as they congregated expectantly while Lt.-Col. Sean Leonard, outgoing commander of the 1st Battalion and a firefighter in civilian life, welcomed invited guests and the few dignitaries still able to function after a day as physically demanding as it was emotionally exhausting. On this informal occasion, tokens of friendship exchanged with their military hosts were accompanied by rueful grins as the young reservists recalled the circumstances of their arrival eight days before. The barracks originally assigned to house them was still occupied by a French regiment awaiting delayed orders to ship out to Africa. The makeshift alternative, a condemned structure infested with bedbugs, was a far cry from their expectations. Nevertheless, the Regiment dug in, if not with enthusiasm, then with resolve.

"There were complaints, sure," said the Pilgrimage planner, Captain Michael Pretty. "But for every one of those there were a dozen who looked at it as a challenge that came along with an incredible opportunity to retrace the footsteps of our First World War Regiment. And they all pitched in to make the best of things."

"It's probably a lot better than what they had back then," was the general view on the eve of the Regiment's departure for home.

While the mood this evening was one of pleasantly relaxed fatigue, during the speeches and exchange of courtesies some tensions arose when three recruits, conscripts of the French regiment still awaiting orders to ship out, began to act up. When the noise began to interfere with the ceremony, Captain Pretty, a member of the regular Canadian Armed Forces and Adjutant with the 1st Battalion in St. John's, approached.

"Show respect," he ordered tersely. The conscripts settled down for barely a minute, then broke out again. The disruption ended with the arrival of a burly, good-natured French duty officer, who herded the three off to their barracks as food was being served.

"Two stayed in barracks, but one ended up in the lockup," said Captain Pretty. "There's nothing unusual about that kind of thing when you're dealing with young people," he added. "The only difference between our group and theirs was that ours are volunteers — they want to be here, doing what they're doing. Those guys are conscripts — they have no choice."

Lt. Col. Tom F. Nangle, R. C. Padre. Crossing the Rhine, Dec. 1918. Nangle later left the priesthood and married. Five of his descendants attended the 90th anniversary remembrances.

Members volunteer for a variety of reasons. Most frequently cited is the opportunity the Reserves offer for education and specialized training without incurring the large debt most students today assume as the price of advancement. Travel, broadened experience and the development of self-confidence and leadership skills are also significant attractions. But this does not explain the motivation of those who go beyond the call to volunteer for duty in dangerous environments such as, in the past, Bosnia, Croatia, Sierra Leone and, now, Afghanistan. For Capt. Chad Belbin, recently returned from that region, the answer is obvious.

"We stopped orphan kids, little girls, from being captured by drug lords," he said. "They sell them as 'daughters' if they get them. We helped people rebuild their communities and protected them from being terrorized by a bunch of murderers. Who wouldn't want to go and do that?

"Look," he pursued, "the world is a dangerous place. If you're a teacher and someone brings a gun to school, you could be killed in your own classroom. The difference between soldiers and civilian workers is that we know the dangers are there and we prepare for that as best we can."

"The Royal Newfoundland Regiment's motto is 'Better Than The Best'," said the Regiment's historian, Dr. David Parsons. "And from what I've seen, it's as true today as it ever was. I can't properly express how I felt, seeing the exemplary bearing, deportment, conduct and commitment of our young soldiers and cadets. They make every one of us proud to be connected with the Regiment."

At trestle tables in Douai, dusk was falling and conversation muted as the long-awaited meal was consumed. Perhaps it was only a temporary lull in otherwise irrepressible high spirits, but the Regiment, facing a 2:00 a.m. reveille for clean-up and the return journey, seemed, suddenly, inexpressibly tired. Nearby, a recruit, angered by something that was said, moved off in a huff from a table he had been about to join.

"Hey, man, come on back, we're only kidding, we never meant nothing by it," said another, standing and laying a restraining hand on the other's arm. "Come on back, now, sit down, no offense, okay?"

He extended a hand, which was taken, and a place was made for the newcomer. Soon there was renewed joking and laughter, the happy sounds of young people bonded for life by extraordinary experience. For one heart-stopping moment, their carefree, casual celebration seemed more profound than all of the pomp and circumstance of the day; and the gathering shadows brought images and echoes of another evening — perhaps, after all, one not so unlike this — of friendships forged, a fragile peace restored, in the midst of a world at war.