The Somme

It was 93 years ago but still fresh in minds. None more fresh then the minds of the people of Newfoundland...

On July 1st 1916 thousands of British and Dominon troops waited in anticipation in their trenches for zero hour. At 7:20am, the mines under Hawthorn Ridge blew. Ten minutes later, the whistles blew. Over the top!

After a week of bombarding the German trenches with shells, the soldiers had been told that all the Germans were dead and the barbed wire had been cut. The Generals said they could walk across and loaded down with equipment that is what the troops did. 

As the attack went on, The Royal Newfoundland Regiment waited in their trenches at Beaumont-Hamel for the signal to advance. At the 29th Division (which the Regiment belonged too) Headquarters Major-General Beauvoir de Lisle and his staff were trying to unravel the numerous and confusing messages coming back from observation posts, contact aircraft and the two leading brigades. There were indications that some troops had broken into and gone beyond the German first line. With these reports the General ordered more troops to go over the top.

At 8:45 am, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment advanced. They had been situated at St. John's Road, a support trench 250 yards behind the British forward line and out of sight of the Germans. Movement forward through the communication trenches was not possible because they were congested with dead and wounded men and under shell fire. Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Lovell Hadow, the battalion commander, decided to move his men quickly into attack formation and advance across which involved first navigating through the British barbed wire defenses.

As the soldiers moved out of their trenches behind the British front lines and due to the fact they were one of the last waves to move forward, they were the only troops moving on the battlefield and visible to the Germans. Most soldiers reached no further then the Danger Tree, a skeleton of a tree, damaged by shell fire that the troops used as a landmark and gathering place. The destruction of the Regiment took 30 minutes.

By July 2nd, total British and Dominion casualties for that day totaled 57,470. Of the 780 men who went over the top with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, 68 answered roll call that day.

It was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault only failed of success because dead men can advance no further
-Major-General Sir Beauvoir de Lisle referring to the Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel