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The Somme
In the spring of 1916 the Newfoundlanders left Egypt along with the British 29th Division and headed to the Western Front. It was here the Newfoundlanders, who had tasted only a little of actual combat in Gallipoli, would almost be annihilated by it at the Somme. That battle would be the Newfoundlanders' most heroic and tragic moment.

The Somme was to have been a "big push" by the British into the Germans' front line. Heavy shelling was to have destroyed German artillery and cut through enemy barbed wire. Communication was to have been precise and clear. Nothing worked as planned for the Newfoundlanders. At 9:15 a.m. on July 1 the regiment went "over the top" as part of the second wave of the Allied attack. They were focussed on Beaumont Hamel.

The men immediately fell under relentless machine-gun fire from nests that had been unaffected by shelling. Hundreds of Newfoundlanders died early in their bloody

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spacer advance across No Man's Land, unsupported by Allied gunfire. The Newfoundlanders watched their comrades fall and continued on through a hail of bullets, some with their chins tucked into their shoulders like men weathering an Atlantic gale. spacer
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  Artillery Barrage
Scenes of artillery barrage, where the First Newfoundland Regiment served, in Somme. October 1916.
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