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Beaumont Hamel, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial

Tread softly here

After the war the Newfoundland Government, with its own funds and those raised by the women of the Dominion, bought these 84 acres of the old battlefield. Looking out over it in the direction of the attack of 1 July 1916 is a bronze caribou, symbol of Newfoundland, and below that a panel listing the Newfoundland missing of World War I.

The man most responsible for the particular style of Newfoundland commemoration on the Western Front was a former Catholic padre of the Newfoundland Regiment, Father Thomas Nangle. To Nangle the memorials were ‘monuments to our glorious dead and to our just as glorious survivors’. The concept of the bronze caribou as embodying the Newfoundland spirit was that of British sculptor Captain Basil Gotto. His plan, was for five caribou memorials and Nangle thought these appropriate:

[His] proposition [is] much cheaper than any of the others, it [is] artistic … [and] most distinctive, his idea being a giant caribou somewhat like the ‘monarch of the Topsails’ carved in bronze on a rough cairn of Newfoundland granite about ten to fifteen feet high.

Father Nangle, quoted in ‘Commemorations Overseas’ at http://www.heritage.nf.ca/greatwar/articles/com_overseas.html

Opening of Beaumont Hamel Park now known as the Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [PANL NA-31-06, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador]

Opening of Beaumont Hamel Park now known as the Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [PANL NA-31-06, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador]

Unveiling of the Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland  Memorial, 7 June 1925. [PANL NA-3102, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador]

Unveiling of the Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, 7 June 1925. [PANL NA-3102, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador]

Caribou, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Caribou, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Caribou, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Caribou, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Caribou, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

The Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial was dedicated on 7 June 1925 in the presence of Field Marshal Earl Haig who had been in overall command of all British forces on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916.In summing up the purpose behind the Caribou Memorial and the Newfoundland Park Father Nangle wrote:

… if Beaumont Hamel was preserved with reasonable attention it [would] remain not only a great tribute to the force of Newfoundland, but [would] also go down to posterity as the greatest historical memorial of what the Great War actually meant.

Father Nangle, quoted in ‘Commemorations Overseas’ at http://www.heritage.nf.ca/greatwar/articles/com_overseas.html

Field Marshal Earl Haig and Lieutenant Colonel Father Thomas Nangle, Beaumont Hamel, 7 June 1925. [PANL F-31-02, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador]

Field Marshal Earl Haig and Lieutenant Colonel Father Thomas Nangle, Beaumont Hamel, 7 June 1925. [PANL F-31-02, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador]

Dedicatory plaque, entrance,  Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Dedicatory plaque, entrance, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

A walk around the preserved battlefield will allow the visitor to form their own estimation of Nangle’s claim. The path from the Caribou leads out over the trench lines past the ‘Tree of the Dead’ to Y Ravine Cemetery. Here some of the Newfoundland dead are buried but most of the bodies were simply interred in an empty trench and not recovered.

Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont  Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Looking across the preserved  battlefield at the Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial towards the 51st  Highland Division Memorial. [DVA]

Looking across the preserved battlefield at the Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial towards the 51st Highland Division Memorial. [DVA]

Inscription, 51st Highland  Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Inscription, 51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Further around the park perimeter is a magnificent monument of a kilted ‘Highlander’, a memorial to the men of the 51st Highland Division who took the German lines here after another attack on 13 December 1916 during the last days of the Battle of the Somme. The inscription in Gaelic on the memorial reads:

La a'Blair s'math n Cairdean.
[Friends are good on the day of battle.]

51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] 51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] 51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] 51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] 51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Beaumont Hamel after its capture by the 51st Highland Division in November 1916. [AWM H08518]

Beaumont Hamel after its capture by the 51st Highland Division in November 1916. [AWM H08518]

British soldiers having their Christmas dinner at Beaumont Hamel, 25 December 1916. [AWM H08544]

British soldiers having their Christmas dinner at Beaumont Hamel, 25 December 1916. [AWM H08544]

Looking from Hunter’s Cemetery towards the 51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Looking from Hunter’s Cemetery towards the 51st Highland Division Memorial, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Beyond the Highlander is Hunter’s Cemetery, one of the most unusual cemeteries on the Somme. The headstones are attached to a low circular wall, rising above the middle of which is the Cross of Sacrifice. Originally, these 46 Highlanders, all from units of the 51st Highland Division, were buried in a shell hole. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission left them there and arranged their headstones in this imaginative way.

Hunter’s Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Hunter’s Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Hunter’s Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Hunter’s Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Hunter’s Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Hunter’s Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Hunter’s Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Hunter’s Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Hunter’s Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Beyond Hunter’s Cemetery is Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No 2. Most of those buried here are from units of the 29th Division such as the Border Regiment, the South Wales Borderers, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the Royal Fusiliers. Headstone after headstone carries the date of death as 1 July 1916. How many of these men, one wonders, survived Gallipoli only to die here in France.

Looking from Hunter’s Cemetery  towards Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No 2, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Looking from Hunter’s Cemetery towards Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No 2, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Denizens of the Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Denizens of the Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No 2, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No 2, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No 2, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No 2, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No 2, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA] Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No 2, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No 2, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No 2, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

As you walk out of the park pause to read the poem by John Oxenham set in bronze a few metres on your left just before the entrance. The first verse could stand as an epitaph for all those men from many lands who perished here on the Somme in 1916:

Tread softly here! Go reverently and slow!
You let your soul go down upon its knees
And with bowed head, and heart abased strive hard
To grasp the future gain in the sore loss!
For not one foot of this dank sod but drank
Its surfeit of the blood of gallant men.
Who for their faith their hope – for life and liberty
Here made the sacrifice – here gave their lives
And gave right willingly – for you and me.

John Oxenham poem, entrance, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

John Oxenham poem, entrance, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Laying a wreath at Beaumont Hamel, July 1926. [PANL NA-31-04, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador]

Laying a wreath at Beaumont Hamel, July 1926. [PANL NA-31-04, Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador]

Memorial wall beneath the Caribou, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, listing names of all those Newfoundland soldiers ‘missing’, who have no known grave, in World War I. [DVA]

Memorial wall beneath the Caribou, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, listing names of all those Newfoundland soldiers ‘missing’, who have no known grave, in World War I. [DVA]

Entrance, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland  Memorial. [DVA]

Entrance, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

A dead German soldier, Beaumont Hamel, no date. [AWM K00016]

A dead German soldier, Beaumont Hamel, no date. [AWM K00016]

Headstone, Unknown Newfoundland  soldier, Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]

Headstone, Unknown Newfoundland soldier, Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial. [DVA]


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© 2007 Department of Veterans' Affairs and Board of Studies NSW :: Last update - 17 February 2008