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Why would I post this ?




Because, the British 29th contained the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, and this,

Ladies and Gentlemen, is




Beaumont - Hamel

   

.

   

again, much of the are has been preserved as it was.. minus the grass of course,
I should try to go back in February and see it muddy.

   

There are 3 Cemeteries on the Beaumont Hamel site, Y Ravine Cemetery is full of
Newfoundlanders..







Hunter's Cemetery is quite interesting, the headstones form a circle as a base
for the Cross of Sacrifice.






The third one, Hawthorn Ridge has more Newfs.






The grave on the right, T. Carroll.. I'll be his age tomorrow.

   

Most people have heard of the Caribou at Beaumont Hamel.


There are in fact 6 of them.

1 in Beaumont Hamel
4 others in France and Belgium.
And 1 in St. John's.

All the other Caribou face this one, and this one at Beaumont Hamel faces over the area
where the Regiment was annihilated on July 1, 1916.

   

So, your just a young whipper snapper then. Great photos Martin. I'll be back in a bit to see the finished product. So far outstanding as a memorial and Thankyou! for your time and effort.

   

So, your just a young whipper snapper then. Great photos Martin. I'll be back in a bit to see the finished product. So far outstanding as a memorial and Thankyou! for your time and effort.

   

Last of part 2.


This is the Thiepval Memorial, a seriously eerie place.









It is 150 feet high, the largest British battle Monument in the world.


You see the grey piers.. there are 16 of them, 4 faces each side,
full of lists of men who..

"Here are recorded names of officers and men of the British Armies who fell on the Somme battlefields between July 1915 and March 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death."












73000 men are listed on this Memorial.





There is a token cemetery on the site, 300 French and 300 British,
including 2 Canadians.





But they are almost all Unknown, or "Inconnu" for the French.

   

Thanks Wada, round 3 ( and the last ) coming up in a bit...

   

Really good stuff Martin. Great shots from a point and shoot. You really should step up and get a DSLR.

Some very moving pictures there. A few hundred thousand ghosts.

I went to the local Parade today. Packed (it's 17C here in the GTA). Lots of locals attended, probably over a couple of thousand. Three Havards from the WPH museum flew over as the pipers lament played. Eerie and cool.

   

Thanks EB, camera should be sorted soon enough, that Olympus is driving me mad.
Some of the shots were taken with my Nokia 808 phone, and the camera
on that thing is not bad at all !

Good to see people getting out, I went to services today ( the only day I go to church )
and lunch with the British Legion crowd.. cleaned up on the raffle too

   

OK, the third part, and then the last little bit.

First, remember there are 6 caribou for the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.

Well, here is the one in Belgium.



It is also the place where Thomas Ricketts got a VC for actions crossing a canal in 1918.



"During the advance from Ledgehem the attack was temporarily held up by heavy hostile fire, and the platoon to which he belonged suffered severe casualties from the fire of a battery at point blank range. Private Ricketts at once volunteered to go forward with his Section Commander and a Lewis gun to attempt to outflank the battery. They advanced by short rushes while subject to severe fire from enemy machine guns. When 300 yards away, their ammunition gave out. The enemy, seeing an opportunity to get their field guns away, began to bring up their gun teams. Private Ricketts at once realized the situation. He doubled back 100 yards, procured some ammunition and dashed back to the Lewis gun, and by very accurate fire drove the enemy and their gun teams into a farm. His platoon then advanced without casualties, and captured four field guns, four machine guns and eight prisoners. A fifth field gun was subsequently intercepted by fire and captured. By his presence of mind in anticipating the enemy intention and his utter disregard for personal safety, Private Ricketts secured the further supplies of ammunition which directly resulted in these important captures and undoubtedly saved many lives."

   

Back to Ypres, Voormeleze Cemetery number 3



This is H G Bellinger, I mentioned earlier he may be the first Canadian killed
in the First World War.



Yes the big flags are mine, just after Canada Day in Victoria I went to the
Dollar store in Saanich Plaza and cleaned them out.



This section is all PPCLI, killed in spring 1915.





All Kings own Yorkshire Light Infantry, all killed the same day, 17th July 1915

Brothers together forever.

   

Get a G12 (the G15 has just replaced it) or a Rebel. Or you could go to the Dark Side. (Nikon).

   

The next place I want to show you is Tyne Cot.

12000 graves


United Kingdom: 8,907
Newfoundland: 14
Australia: 1,353
New Zealand: 519
South Africa: 90
British West Indies: 2
France: 1

and another 1000 Canadians

The vast majority of the burials here are unnamed, meaning they knew the
nationality or the Regiment, but not the name of the man.

There are also panels of the Missing, the names of 35000 men
are listed here.




Couple of interesting ones though:




There are a lot of Australians buried here.


And one of our VC holders, James Peter Robinson

"On 6 November 1917 at Passchendaele, Belgium, when his platoon was held up by a machine-gun, Private Robertson rushed the gun, killed four of the crew and then turned the gun on the remainder. After inflicting more casualties and carrying the captured gun, he led his platoon to the final position and got the gun into action, firing on the retreating enemy. During the consolidation his use of the machine-gun kept down the enemy sniper fire. Later when two of the snipers on his own side were wounded, he went out and carried one of them in under heavy fire but he was killed by a shell just as he returned with the second man."

   

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