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The story of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment has always been of tremendous interest to me, arising out of my long friendship with George Chalker, a war amputee from St. John’s, who fought and was twice wounded with this famous World War I military Force.

As a lad raised in the west during the Depression, I saw the financial recovery – particularly after World War II – in my native Manitoba.  I wondered why the same prosperity had not come to Newfoundland, bearing in mind the extensive resources of the island province.

The more I read about the terrible sacrifices of the Newfoundland Regiment in World War I, coupled with the lack of immigration to that province after the war, the more I began to realize that there was an important story to tell there.

I was able to tell the story in The War Amps documentary The Blue Puttees.

Their story is not well-known in the rest of Canada, but deserves to be.  The regiment suffered tremendous losses – first, in Gallipoli, and then in France.  In fact, in one action alone – which took something like 30 minutes – the battalion went into the line with nearly 800 Newfoundlanders, and only 69 answered the roll call the next day.  That was the infamous Battle of Beaumont-Hamel, on July 1, 1916.

This, however, is not the end of the story, and despite tragic losses, Newfoundland was able to provide sufficient reinforcements to keep the regiment in the field until the end of the war.  Hence, Newfoundland was able to engage in a number of other defensive and offensive battles of international renown, including Monchy-Le-Preux, Gueudecourt, and Cambrai.

In the film, we see probably the saddest consequence of the war:  though the gallantry awards won by members of the Newfoundland Regiment were the highest of any unit in the British Army, the losses in combat deaths were also the highest.  Newfoundland was the only regiment accorded the prefix “Royal” during World War I, and also had the distinction of having the youngest Victoria Cross winner in the British Army – 17 year-old Thomas Ricketts of Middle Arm, White Bay, Newfoundland.  However, losses in combat deaths were 20 percent, compared with less than 10 percent in regular Canadian units.

There is no doubt that World War I exacted an extremely heavy toll and – it might well be said – the very lifeblood of Newfoundland.  The young men who would have made Newfoundland a leading colony, and later, a province in Canada, did not have the opportunity, because their remains lay buried in France.

To this day, while the rest of Canada celebrates the birth of our nation on July 1st, in Newfoundland, the people gather instead to mourn and to remember the sacrifices of their finest on that fateful summer day over 90 years ago.  And they do it with the beautiful blue forget-me-not flower as their symbol, in place of the traditional poppy.