Royal Newfoundland Regiment at Gallipoli

As I mentioned in a previous post, 25 April 2015 marks the 100^th Anniversary of the landing of Allied forces at Gallipoli, including forces from Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The only North American unit in the entire 8 month long campaign was the Royal Newfoundland Regiment (RNR) that landed later on 20 September 1915. However, today is not Memorial Day in the province.

Later in the war, the regiment was virtually wiped out on 1 Jul 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Since then July 1 has been Memorial Day in Newfoundland and Labrador. Traditionally, remembrance ceremonies are held in the morning, and then the day gives way to celebrations for the nationwide holiday, Canada Day.

Britain entered World War I on 4 Aug 1914 and about 1000 men had enlisted for the Newfoundland Regiment by the end of September. They trained on the outskirts of St. John’s before shipping out for more training in England and Scotland where they became part of the 29^th Division of the British Army. (Newfoundland was a British Dominion and not part of Canada at the time.)

The British and French wanted to get supplies to their allies in Russia. Overland routes were blocked and getting past the German north coast in the Baltic was problematic. The third route was to get supplies through to the Russian Black Sea ports via the Dardenelles Strait controlled by the Ottoman Empire, allies of the Germans. The Gallipoli Peninsula is at the Mediterranean end of the north side of the Dardanelles.

Conditions on the battlefield were awful with both water shortages and weather to challenge the Allies. There was trench warfare here as well as Europe. The RNR are renowned for capturing Caribou Hill, which the Turks were using to snipe at the allied forces. No military breakthrough occurred so it was decided to withdraw.

While not arriving at Gallipoli at the beginning of the campaign, the Newfoundland Regiment provided necessary cover on the last day as troops pulled out, 9 Jan 1916. Thirty men had been killed or mortally wounded. Ten more had died of disease. In one of the worst winters in decades, the soldiers really suffered. One hundred fifty were treated for frostbite and exposure.

After a short rest period, the regiment would be assigned duty in France and suffer an immense loss. In all, 6200 men served in the RNR with 1300 dead – a very high price.

Sources: www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/first-world-war/fact_sheets/gallipoli

                www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/royal_newfoundland_regiment

Wisdom Wednesday – World War I Appeal Tribunal

Last week The British National Archives announced that they were posting World War I soldiers diaries to their site: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/first-world-war . They have the potential of being a fantastic genealogical resource, and there launch was widely reported by my fellow bloggers so I held off.   
       
On Thursday, 23 January, the Archives has announced that they are “making the digitized records the Middlesex Appeal Tribunal, which heard the cases of men seeking exemption from conscription into the army during the First World War, available online.”

The records of the Middlesex Appeal Tribunal include the cases of over 8,000 individuals, as well as administrative papers reflecting the changing policy towards conscription as the war progressed. “The records reveal men seeking exemption on medical, family or economic grounds, as well as the relatively small proportion wishing not to fight on moral grounds as conscientious objectors.”

The Middlesex Appeal Tribunal was one of the county-level appeal tribunals, part of a national system of tribunals that were established across the UK to hear applications from men seeking exemption from military service. The collection is one of two sets of appeal tribunal records officially retained as a benchmark following the end of the war, and provides a unique insight into the impact of the World War I on families, businesses and communities far from the battlefields. (Emphasis by this blogger)

Local and county appeal tribunal records also survive in many local archives, within personal and local government collections, and with the Federation of Family History Societies, The National Archives has begun a survey of surviving material in local collections.

Search the case papers through our First World War 100 web portal at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/first-world-war. Contact The National Archives with questions relating to the project or the records at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/contact/. Questions might be ‘What is the second place for which the Archives retained records?’ and ‘If they anticipate putting those records online later, when will it be?’ 

Wisdom Wednesday: The Great War Commemorations

World War I in Europe spanned the years from 1914 to 1919.  The commemorations of this muddy, lice-infested, entrenched war will begin this year – one hundred years later.  Special websites are appearing and established websites are announcing specific WWI projects. I will keep you posted as new sites and projects come to my attention.

One of the first new websites is a unique digital archive The Welsh Experience of the First World War (cymru1914.org). It has been developed as a collaborative initiative led by The National Library of Wales, in partnership with the Archives and Special Collections of Wales which itself includes the country’s major universities; BBC Cymru Wales; The People’s Collection, Wales; and archives and local records offices that are part of ARCW: the Archives and Records Council of Wales. 

The site is somewhat spare right now with no pictures but a search box that allows you to look within the entire collection or only one of the universities or archives.

If you don’t know if you have an ancestor in this war, you can consult the relatively new site www.forces-war-records.co.uk. Quite a bit of information is free, but more details require a subscription of one month for £8.95, three months for £25.95 and several longer choices.