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The Royal Newfoundland Regiment
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The Royal Newfoundland Regiment - (R NFLD R) traces its origins to 1795, and since 1949 it has been a militia or reserve unit of the Canadian Forces.
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The Royal Newfoundland Regiment - (R NFLD R) traces its origins to 1795, and since 1949 it has been a militia or reserve unit of the Canadian Forces. During the First World War the battalion-sized regiment was the only North American unit to fight in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. Later in the war the regiment was virtually wiped out at Beaumont Hamel on July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Since then July 1 has been marked as Memorial Day in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Early history
A Newfoundland regiment was first founded, to serve in the British Army, in 1795. It was disbanded and refounded several times under different names, including His Majesty's Royal Newfoundland Regiment of Foot, The Royal Newfoundland Veterans Companies and, The Royal Newfoundland Companies. The regiment dates its origin to 1795, when Major Skinner of the Royal Engineers stationed in St. John's at Fort Townshend, was ordered to raise a regiment.
The regiment was significantly involved in the War of 1812. Soldiers of the regiment fought aboard ships as marines in battles of the Great Lakes, as infantry in Michigan, and in the battle to defend York (Toronto). It was largely distributed throughout the zone as attached sub-units and not as a formed battalion. It was disbanded in 1816. A monument depicting a soldier of the 1813 Royal Newfoundland Regiment standing over a fallen American infantryman was unveiled in Toronto in November 2008.
Newfoundland became a self-governing Dominion of the British Empire on 26 September 1907
World War I
Like all other parts of the British Empire, Newfoundland was bound by British foreign policy and entered the First World War on August 4, 1914. From a very small population base, it raised the 1st Newfoundland Regiment, to fight alongside the British Army.
During the First World War, the Newfoundland Regiment was nicknamed the "Blue Puttees" due to a fabric shortage which saw the regiment wearing blue puttees rather than the standard olive drab puttees. A total of 6241 Newfoundlanders served with the Regiment during the First World War (an additional 5747 served in other units).
Gallipoli
On September 20, 1915 the regiment landed at Suvla Bay on the Gallipoli peninsula, where the British VIII Corps, IX Corps and the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) had been attempting to seize control of the Dardanelles Strait from Turkey since the first landings on April 25. At Gallipoli the 1st Newfoundland Regiment faced snipers, artillery fire and severe cold, as well as the trench warfare hazards of cholera, dysentery, typhus, gangrene and trench foot. Over the next three months thirty soldiers of the regiment were killed or mortally wounded in action and ten died of disease; 150 were treated for frostbite and exposure.
Despite the terrible conditions, the Newfoundlanders stood up well. When the decision was made to evacuate all British Empire forces from the area, the regiment was chosen to be a part of the rearguard, finally withdrawing from Gallipoli with the last of the British Dardanelles Army troops on January 9, 1916.
The Somme
On July 1 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme in World War I, over 730(initially) of the 801 soldiers of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment rose from the British trenches and went into battle at Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, nine kilometres north of Albert in France. The next day, only 69 men answered the regimental roll call: 255 were dead, 386 were wounded, and 91 were listed as missing. Every officer who had gone over the top was either wounded or dead.
The regiment was in one of the follow up waves of what was referred to as "The July Drive" and were scheduled to reinforce what was expected to be sweeping victories across the front. When the time came to move to the jumping-off point, the Newfoundlanders found that the lead trenches were so tightly packed with dead and dying soldiers of the lead waves, who had been stopped by formidable barbed wire obstacles and automatic weapons fire, that they had to attack from secondary trenches. The increased amount of ground they had to cover, in the open, contributed to the disaster that befell them. The Newfoundland Regiment never made it past their own concentrations of barbed wire. Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Lovell Hadow who witnessed the attack reported that the attack had failed despite training, discipline, and valour, because dead men can advance no further.
On the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army (57,470 casualties, 19,240 dead) at the opening of the largest battle (over one million casualties) of the war, Newfoundland had also suffered its gravest military loss. To this day, Beaumont-Hamel remains the most significant single military action fought by Newfoundlanders, and it marked a turning point in the history and culture of the island. Some historians have suggested that tiny Newfoundland never fully recovered from the loss of so many of its male population; similar hardships were faced by the regiment at Gallipoli as well.
Newfoundlanders today mark the date of July 1 not just as Canada Day, but also as Memorial Day.
After Beaumont-Hamel
In the weeks and months following the attack, as the surviving officers wrote letters of condolence to families and relatives in Newfoundland, the Battalion was steadily brought back to full strength. Six weeks later they were beating off a German gas attack in Flanders. Subsequently they distinguished themselves in a number of battles; back on the Somme at Gueudecourt in October 1916; on 23 April 1917, at Monchy-le-Preux during the Battle of Arras, where they lost 485 men in a day but checked a German attack despite overwhelming odds; then in November 1917 at Masnières-Marcoing during the Battle of Cambrai where they heroically stood their ground although outflanked; then at Bailleul stemming the German advance in April 1918. Following a period out of the line providing the guard force for General Headquarters at Montreuil, they joined the 28th Brigade of the 9th (Scottish) Division and were in action again at Ledegem and beyond in the advances of the Last Hundred Days. It was in these last days of the war that Pte. Thomas Ricketts of the Regiment became the youngest soldier of the war to win the Victoria Cross. In recognition of their achievements the Newfoundlanders were regarded as being an elite battalion.
First World War honours
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