The Battle of the Somme: The Terrible fate of the Newfoundlands

Barbed Wire on the Battlefield at Beaumont-Hamel

The Battle of the Somme is arguably the most infamous battle of the First World War.  Considered as perhaps the definitive battle of the war, the images of mud and death are some of the most powerful in recalling the horror and futility of the conflict.

On the first day alone, the British Army reported 57,000 casualties, still the deadliest day in its history.  By the battles end some 141 days later, over 3 million men would have fought along the 25-mile front.  Over a million would be killed or wounded for an Allied advance of a mere 7 miles into German territory.

There are many museums and memorials along the Western Front.  The multitude of cemeteries, are a stark reminder of the human cost of the war.  One particular memorial, at Beaumont-Hamel, just north of the town of Albert, tells the story of the Newfoundland Regiment and their tragic contribution on that sunny summers Saturday morning of July 1^st 1916.

Newfoundland Memorial Beaumont-Hamel

Newfoundland in 1914 was a Dominion of the British Empire and not yet part of Canada.  The population was rural and numbered just 240,000. The largest settlement as it is today was St. Johns with just 32,000 inhabitants.  Nevertheless, showing the same sort of enthusiasm as found across the British Empire, the Newfoundland Regiment was formed shortly after the outbreak of war.  After training in Britain, the 1000 troops were posted to support the Gallipoli campaign.  Then following a period of leave they were posted to The Somme.

The battle itself began at 6am with a prolonged artillery barrage which continued for an hour.  At 7:20am a mine was detonated beneath the German defensive position on Hawthorn Ridge, just to the west of Beaumont-Hamel, creating a 40-metre-wide crater.  Ten minutes later at 7:30am the troops went over the top.  The 10-minute delay had given the German defenders time to prepare for the advancing troops, and their advance faced a fierce barrage of machine gun and artillery fire.

Due to confusion, Allied commanders believed the advance had been successful and ordered reinforcements to push forward.  The Newfoundlands were given the order to advance at 8:45am.

Finding it impossible to advance along the communication trenches due to the number of wounded men, the order was given to advance on the surface.  German guns cut most of them down before they had even reached the front-line trench.

Survivors tried to push on.  The initial allied artillery barrage had destroyed any cover for the advancing men, save for a petrified Apple Tree, later to be christened “The Danger Tree.”  As men made to use the meagre cover, they were easy targets for the German gunners and many died beneath its branches.  Those that made it further were to find the German positions heavily fortified, and would perish in the barbed wire defences.

The Danger Tree

By 9:45 the attack was abandoned, and the few survivors made their way back to the Allied front line.  One man, Private James McGrath, spent 17 hours in No Man’s Land before managing to make it back to the safety of the allied trenches.  Badly wounded he had crawled a mile across the battlefield.  In an interview by the Newfoundland Quarterly he recalled that “The Germans mowed us down like sheep.”

He was one of the lucky ones.  The Newfoundland Regiment had gone into battle that morning with 780 men.  In just an hour 670 were killed or wounded.  At roll call the next morning only 68 men answered.  The regiment had been effectively wiped out, suffering a casualty rate in excess of 85%.  Indeed, only the 10^th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment suffered greater losses in their attack at Fricourt, just to the south of Beaumont-Hamel.

In the aftermath, Beaumont-Hamel became a quiet part of the front.  Commanders had realised that the German positions here were too well fortified to be attacked successfully.

In 1921 the battlefield was purchased by the government of Newfoundland in order to build a permanent memorial to the fallen.  In 1925 the Newfoundland Memorial Park was opened by Field Marshall Earl Haig.  Since the confederation of Newfoundland with Canada in 1949 the site is maintained by the Canadian Government.

The centrepiece of the memorial park is a Bronze Caribou statue that looks across the battlefield.  It stands on a mound of Newfoundland Granite, imported specifically for the memorial.  Additionally, there are three cemeteries inside the park, containing the bodies of 700 of the fallen.  There is also a memorial to the 51^st Highland Division that fought here in the later years of the war.

The park also contains the preserved remains of the Allied and German trenches, and a reproduction “Danger Tree” in No Mans Land.  It is possible to walk across the battlefield and remember those men who lost their lives during the battle.  Perhaps the most haunting experience is to stand in the German trenches looking back towards the Allied front line.  From here it is possible to imagine how easily the Germans were able to inflict such devastating losses on the advancing troops.  There is a clear view across No Man’s Land, and as you watch other visitors emerge from the Allied trenches, they are easy targets for the machine guns that defended the position.

The visitors centre contains displays describing the history of the Newfoundland Regiment and their role in the Battle of the Somme.  From here it is possible to arrange a guided tour of the park.  These are provided by Canadian students that spend a year in France as part of their studies.

Access to the Newfoundland Memorial Park is free and the park is open at all hours.

Restricted opening hours apply only to the Visitor Centre as follows:
Open Mondays 11.00 - 17.00 hours; Tuesday - Sunday 09.00 - 17.00 hours

For information or reservations for guided tours contact:

Address: Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, Rue de l'Église (route D73), 80300 Beaumont-Hamel, France

Telephone: +33 (0)3 22 76 70 86

Email: beaumonthamel.memorial@vac-acc.gc.ca

Website: www.veterans.gc.ca Beaumont Hamel

The Other End of the Line

Mallard, The World's Fastest Steam Locomotive

I have a confession to make.  I like trains.  Not in the biblical sense you understand, that would be just weird, but I do like reading about and watching videos on trains.  More specifically I suppose the act of travelling by train to a variety of destinations.  Why should I have this strange compulsion?  I've come up with the following theory.

Until the age of four, we lived in a small flat overlooking the West London Railway between Shepherds Bush and Kensington Olympia.  I have memories of watching all sorts of different trains passing by from our living room window.  I especially remember Motorail trains, wagons full of cars, that once ran all over the UK from the dedicated terminal at Olympia.

The poster advertising Motorail services at Olympia now long gone.

It was once possible to travel to over 28 destinations around the UK by Motorail.  The service was launched in 1955 with an overnight service from London to Perth.  By 1966 the terminal at Olympia had opened and it was possible to reach destinations such as Inverness, Penzance and Cardiff.  You could even connect with ferry sailings from Dover and Fishguard.  At a time when cars were less reliable and long journeys by road took much longer than today, the service boomed.  By the time of privatisation however the services were less popular, and most were withdrawn by 1995.  First Great Western relaunched a service from Paddington as a supplement to the overnight Night Riviera sleeper to Penzance, but this was withdrawn in 2005. 

My father's parents lived in Weybridge, a Surrey commuter town on the Southwest Main Line.  We would often travel 'up to town' through Clapham Junction for a trip to a cricket match at The Oval or a day in the bright lights of the West End.

Clapham Junction looking towards Waterloo

Clapham Junction is the busiest station for train movements (between 100 and 180 per hour) in Europe.  Both the Southwest Main Line and the Brighton Mainline pass through the station before heading on to Waterloo and Victoria respectively.  This also makes Clapham Junction the busiest station for interchanges between trains.  It was also the site of one of the most serious rail accidents of the twentieth century.  A faulty signal caused the collision of three trains leading to the death of 35 passengers and injuries to 484.

Later, before my mum learnt to drive, we would visit her parents in Sussex by taking the train from Charing Cross or Cannon Street to Ashford.  There we would change trains for the trip across the Romney Marsh to Rye on one of the narrow-bodied Hastings Diesels, a Class 201 DEMU, built for the London - Hastings via Tonbridge Line.  

A narrow-bodied Class 201 Hastings Diesel

The unscrupulous builder of the line saved money by not sufficiently reinforcing the tunnel walls on the route.  When this was discovered, after a collapse of one of the tunnels, the cost of reboring them was considered too great.  Therefore, they narrowed them instead to stop a collapse.  As a result, the tunnels were now too narrow for two standard trains to pass side by side.  The class 201's were built specifically for the route and also provided the Marshlink service from Hastings to Ashford.  When the line was electrified in 1986, the lines through the tunnels were singled so that standard size rolling stock could work the route.

Living in London I was a frequent user of the London Underground.  I would frequently meet friends for drinks alongside the Thames at Hammersmith on the District Line, visit the music shops in Denmark Street via Leicester Square and travelling to my then girlfriends at Acton Town.

An R Stock District Line Train for Richmond at Gloucester Road once my local tube station.  These trains stayed in service until 1983 when they were replaced by more modern D Stocks.  These too have now been withdrawn, replaced by the S Stock between 2013 - 17. 

The Tube is another subject all on its own.  Each of the lines have an interesting history, tales of corporate shenanigans between rival companies and of course the legacy of a Chicago businessman (swindler) Charles Tyson Yerkes.  The Underground has given us not just the blueprint for all the mass transit systems in the world today, but also Metroland, the iconic Harry Beck map and the Johnston typeface. 

It's not just the trains, the stations also hold a fascination especially those in London.

The long demolished Broad Street Station.  Formerly adjacent to Liverpool Street it was immortalised just before closure in Paul McCartney's film Give My Regards to Broad Street.

The capital has, according to Network Rail, seventeen 'Terminal' stations.  That is to say, when you buy a ticket that says "London Terminals' it is valid to any of the seventeen.  However not all of these are a terminus.  What I mean is not all these stations are at the end of the line.  At London Bridge for example, which is in fact London's oldest surviving station, a train could continue on to Charing Cross or Cannon Street before running out of railway.  This got me thinking, just how many stations are there where you can go no further because the rails run out?

In London the answer is twelve National Rail Stations.  As a quiz question spoiler these are: Waterloo, Victoria, Paddington, Marylebone, Euston, Kings Cross, St. Pancras International, Liverpool Street, Fenchurch Street, Cannon Street, Charing Cross and Moorgate.

If you ask most people, they will be familiar with most of them.  Four can be found on the Monopoly board for example.  Most folk living locally to me will have taken the train to Euston or Kings Cross from Lancaster or Leeds at some time or another.  So that got me thinking even more.  What is there at the other end of the line?

With some basic research I found out that there are almost 150 terminal stations in the UK.  From Penzance in Cornwall to Thurso in Scotland.  From Holyhead in the west of Wales to Felixstowe in the east of England.  Some of the stations are in major cities like Liverpool Lime Street, others in small villages such as Gunnislake in Cornwall.  In fact, so fascinated have I become I'm planning a series, visiting as many of the places as I can to see what they are like.

Are there enough of you out there that would read such ramblings?  I suppose if you've got this far there's a fair chance.  To be honest I do enjoy travel writing, I read a lot of Bill Bryson and Paul Theroux.  In fact, Theroux made his name by writing about a train journey from London to Asia and back, calling his book The Great Railway Bazaar.  Now there's a thought.

Perhaps a round trip to Asia is a step to far.  Heysham Port is the closest terminal station to home so that will have to do, for the time being at least.

Heysham Port Station