Lest we forget: The Battle of the Somme

Further to The Galloping Beaver's post below: on Newfoundland's Memorial Day (check the link and the links in "Comments" for more details on Newfoundland and the Great War) an important ceremony is held at Beaumont-Hamel in France (full text subscribers only).

As he spoke about walking alone in the mist surrounding the giant caribou monument at Beaumont-Hamel in France, Newfoundlander Jim Herder's eyes welled up.

It was his first visit to the storied spot in France where, on July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, about 800 members of the Newfoundland Regiment went over the top only to run into enemy fire.

Mr. Herder's uncles -- his father's brothers Hubert, Arthur and Ralph -- were three of those men and together, they undertook the dreaded mission that would see 255 perish, with another 478 either wounded or missing...

The giant caribou, the symbol of the Newfoundland Regiment, now known as the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, was lit up and surrounded by mist and Mr. Herder stood and thought about what it must have been like for his uncles to climb out of the trenches and onto the battlefield knowing they would most likely die...

A ceremony yesterday, featuring Princess Anne, who is the regiment's colonel-in-chief, marked the first time the unit has returned since that fateful day. More than 1,000 onlookers, in addition to about 500 special guests and dignitaries, took part...

One person in particular had to be there:

Canada's top soldier, Gen. Rick Hillier, was also at the ceremony.

"As a soldier and a Newfoundlander, I couldn't not be here," Gen. Hillier said, adding that he had a great-uncle who served with the regiment and died in 1917 in Ypres.

He dismissed the suggestion that memories of such battles will fade as Canada's war veterans die at an increasing rate.

"I don't think the memory will ever fade," he said. "It's seared into the Newfoundland psyche.... Newfoundland took a body blow that day."

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams, who called the ground at Beaumont-Hamel sacred, said his emotions were mixed between "tremendous pride and immense sadness" that such young men had to die...

The Somme was also the bloodiest battle the Canadian Army ever fought, according to Martin Gilbert in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen (full text subscribers only) about his new book on the Somme.

Your story reminds us that the Somme cost many Canadians their lives (24,029 were killed or wounded). Was it the costliest battle, in terms of lives, that Canadians have ever fought?

I think it was, and partly because it lasted for so long.

Mr Gilbert's book and the Somme are also the subjects of a good column by Peter Worthington.