‘Our boys are coming home’ Replicas of Beaumont Hamel plaques being unveiled BY STEVE BARTLETT The Telegram

Overseeing the finishing touches of the plaque site Monday morning were Royal Newfoundland Regiment members (from left) Chief Warrant Officer Terry Hurley, honorary lieutenant colonel Kevin Hutchings and Lt.-Col. Alex Brennan. — Photo by Joe Gibbons/The Telegram

A monument being unveiled at Bowring Park Wednesday comes with a weighty significance.
It features replicas of the plaques at the Newfoundland Memorial in Beaumont Hamel, France.
The trio of plates lists 820 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who died during the First World War and have no known graves.
“In effect, our boys have come home,” says Ed Roberts, former honorary colonel of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.
The plaques are fittingly being unveiled July 1, the day the regiment was decimated in 1916 during the opening of the Battle of the Somme.
One plaque is devoted to the regiment and features 591 names. The others list 114 people from the Newfoundland Royal Naval Reserve and 115 from the Merchant Marine.
The tablets are set in a stone wall located across from the park’s caribou statue, which was replicated from the Beaumont Hamel site in the 1920s.
Roberts says the plaques complete the memorial at Bowring Park.
The plates are exact duplicates of the Beaumont Hamel originals, he notes.
“If there was a misspelling on one of the names, it’s here now,” he says.
The idea to reproduce the plaques has been long discussed by the regiment.
The project was put into action after Roberts, then the lieutenant governor, wrote Premier Danny Williams following a trek to France in the summer of 2006 for the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.
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Williams, who was in Beaumont Hamel for the ceremony, says he was awestruck and humbled by the site.
He says when asked he knew immediately replicating the plaques was something the province had to do.
“Most Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will never have the honour of going to Beaumont Hamel personally and experiencing the pride you cannot help but feel. And many people and families have loved ones whose names are listed on those plaques. So I think it is just wonderful that this project is now completed,” says Williams in an e-mail.
The province has reportedly allocated $330,000 for the project. The City of St. John’s has overseen it and footed a portion of the bill.
Members of the regiment are grateful the plaques are in place.
They say it is as moving as the original monument.
“I’m serious, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up (the first time I saw the site). It was unbelievable,” says Chief Warrant Officer Terry Hurley, the regimental sergeant major.
“You’re walking through a cemetery when you are walking through Beaumont Hamel,” explains Kevin Hutchings, the regiment’s honorary lieutenant colonel. “You won’t walk through a cemetery at Bowring Park, but I entirely agree ... I think you will get that same feeling of emotion by seeing the names.”
People involved with the regiment also appreciate the closure the tablets will provide the soldiers’ descendants, and they are glad the much-discussed concept has come to fruition.
They want people to take up the challenge and visit the monument to remember those who died during the First World War.
“This is our wall of reflection,” said Lt.-Col. Alex Brennan, commanding officer of the First Battalion, Royal Newfoundland Regiment.
He hopes the site prompts questions about the names and stories of the people on the plaques.
He expresses particular hope teachers and students visited the memorial.
“Because those names (on the plaque) will be a reflection of them,” he says. “They will see their own family names there for the most part, names such as the Strongs, the Leonards, and the Collins.”
Wednesday’s ceremony is set for 2 p.m.

sbartlett@thetelegram.com