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Sunday, April 24
Before leaving, Major McLeod and L. Col. Quarton gave a cheery
wave from the balcony of the hotel, which at one point had been
the German Headquarters. The tour passed through beautiful country
to visit Dieppe and then passed down narrow streets to the beach
where the Canadians made their raid. On this misty morning,
although the sea was calm, you could almost hear and see in
your mind the noise and confusion of the attack on Dieppe.
After lunch in Dieppe the tour passed on into rolling countryside
to Amiens and stopped at Beaumont Hamel. The skies were cloudy
and misting rain as they visited the museum, and walked among
the trenches before climbing a path to pose beneath the large
statue of a huge caribou. It seemed somehow appropriate. In
1916, along 580 km of trenches, the British forces and their
allies would try to smash through the German lines in the Somme
region of France. Over 400,000 attacked. At the end of the day
60,000 were dead. This was a concentrated war happening over
a 10 km wide strip. For those 100 km away the only sign of war
was the fact that they saw live people going in, and dead people
coming back.
 Here
at Beaumont Hamel, the Newfoundland Regiment was responsible
for taking their section of the line. Faced with withering machine
gun fire 800 men raced out of their trenches to make the attack,
and a meagre 69 were left at the end of the day. It was truly
a terrible day for their first battle in France.
We drove past Canal de Nords but had insufficient time to do
it justice on the way to Arras. |
