Royal Newfoundland Regiment


The Royal Newfoundland Regiment is a Primary Reserve infantry regiment of the Canadian Army. It is part of the 5th Canadian Division's 37 Canadian Brigade Group.
Predecessor units trace their origins to 1795, and since 1949 Royal Newfoundland Regiment has been a unit of the Canadian Army. During the First World War the battalion-sized Newfoundland Regiment was the only North American unit to fight in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. Later in the war the regiment was virtually wiped out at Beaumont Hamel on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, but was rebuilt and continued to serve throughout France and Belgium until the armistice, then serving as part of the British Army of the Rhine in 1919. In December 1917, George V bestowed the regiment with the right to use the prefix "Royal" before its name. It was the only military unit to receive this honour during the First World War.
During the Second World War, the Newfoundland Militia was raised for defence and renamed the Newfoundland Regiment in 1943. The regiment remained in a home-defence role and also trained recruits for the two regiments of the Royal Artillery that were recruited in Newfoundland for overseas service. In 1949, Newfoundland joined Canada as the latter's 10th province and part of the Terms of Union required the re-creation of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment as the primary militia unit for the province. The regiment is ranked last in the Royal Canadian Infantry Corps' order of precedence.

Structure

  • 1 Battalion
  • *1 Battalion HQ
  • *A Company
  • *B Company
  • 2 Battalion
  • *2 Battalion HQ
  • *A Company
  • *B Company
  • *C Company
  • The Royal Newfoundland Regiment Band

    Predecessor units

Militia units

Though the Royal Newfoundland Regiment traces its existence to 1795 and the establishment of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment of Foot, its origins are based in the existence of numerous local militia units raised in the colony in the eighteenth century. Prominent Newfoundland militias include Michael Gill's militia in the 1704 defence of Bonavista, the St. Mary's Militia that captured an American privateer during the American Revolution, and the 150 Newfoundland militiamen who served with the Royal Highland Emigrants during the Battle of Quebec.

Royal Newfoundland Regiment of Foot

As conflict between Revolutionary France and Britain increased in the 1790s, Britain found its overseas colonies threatened from French actions. Facing war on land and lacking the suitable land forces to defend its overseas colonies, in 1795 the British Government ordered Thomas Skinner of the Royal Engineers to raise a regiment for local defence purposes. Skinner was the engineering officer responsible for the construction of defensive positions atop Signal Hill in the aftermath of the French and Indian Wars. By the following year, strength for the regiment had reached 35 officers and 615 men, organized into 10 line infantry companies, one light infantry company, and one grenadier company. In September 1796, the French Navy was reported to be sailing for St. John's to invade the city; in response, the entirety of the Regiment of Foot erected tents atop Signal Hill and around Fort Amherst to give the appearance of a much larger force defending the city. The ruse was successful, causing the naval force to abandon any attempts to land at St. John's; instead, the navy sailed south for Bay Bulls and burned all of the houses before departing the area. In 1797 the Grenadier Company escorted Governor Waldergrave aboard, which had recently been the site of an unsuccessful mutiny attempt. Conditions in Newfoundland were harsh during this time period, even for the garrison soldiers. Winter food often spoiled, and a fire at Fort William in 1798 destroyed much of the regiment's bedding and medical supplies, making life that much harder for the soldiers. As a result, the desertion rate was high. Matters for the regiment further worsened in April 1800 when 50 soldiers loyal to the United Irish Movement attempt to desert en masse from Signal Hill. The alarm was sounded during their attempt, and 16 mutineers were captured. The newly appointed commanding officer, Brigadier John Skerrett ordered the five ringleaders hanged and the remaining deserters sent by prison ship to Halifax. Questioning the loyalty of his mostly-Irish soldiers, Brigadier Skerrett ordered the regiment's line companies to Halifax, receiving the 66th Regiment of Foot in its place. The regiment remained in Halifax for a further two years until peace with Revolutionary France came with the Treaty of Amiens. Having no immediate need for local defence units in British North America, Britain disbanded the Newfoundland Regiment of Foot in March 1802.

Royal Newfoundland Regiment of Fencible Infantry

Garrison duty

Peace for Britain was short-lived, and in 1803 the country once again found itself at war with Napoleonic France. Brigadier Skerrett was tasked with recruiting an infantry unit consisting of ten companies in Newfoundland for the purposes of local defence. Titled the Newfoundland Regiment of Fencible Infantry, the unit consisted of many veterans of the previous Newfoundland Regiment. By 1806 the regiment numbered nearly 700 men and was given the title Royal by King George III. 'Local defence' included all of British North America, and in 1807 the regiment was deployed to Fort Anne in Nova Scotia. The regiment was again transferred in 1808, this time to the Citadel in Quebec City where it remained until the outbreak of war in 1812.

War of 1812

The regiment, called at the time the Royal Newfoundland Regiment of Fencible Infantry, was significantly involved in the War of 1812. In May 1812, weeks before outbreak of the war with the United States, Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, commander of his Majesty's Forces in Upper Canada, deployed the regiment into smaller companies or detachments, combined with other units or regiments in defensive positions all over the province. Some were employed as marines on board naval vessels on the Great Lakes as part of the Provincial Marine. These marines were involved in a number of notable naval actions during the war, including the Battle of Lake Erie and the capture of USS Tigress and USS Scorpion.
Battles in which elements of the regiment took part included: Skirmish at Canard River 16 July 1812, Battle of Detroit 16 August 1812, Battle of Matilda 16 September 1812, Battle of the River Raisin or Frenchtown, Michigan 22 January 1813, the British raid on Ogdensburg, New York 22 February 1813, the Battle of York 27 April 1813 and operations in northwest Ohio, including the siege of Fort Meigs in the spring of 1813 and the Battle of Fort George, 25–27 May 1813. The regiment was also involved in the British Raid on Sacket's Harbour, New York on 29 May 1813, and provided soldiers who served as marines in the Battle of Lake Erie on 10 September 1813. The regiment's service continued at the Battle of the Thames or Moraviantown on 5 October 1813, and in northern Michigan at the Battle of Michilimackinac or Mackinac Island, 4 August 1814 and as part of the capture of American naval vessels Tigress 3 September 1814 and Scorpion on Upper Lake Huron on 6 September 1814.
It was largely distributed throughout the zone as attached sub-units and not as a formed battalion and was disbanded in 1816. A monument depicting a toy soldier of the 1813 Royal Newfoundland Regiment standing over a fallen American toy soldier was unveiled in Toronto in November 2008. The War of 1812 Monument in Ottawa, which is situated across from the National War Memorial, also features a soldier of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment – one of seven bronze figures which stands on top of that monument.
In 2012, on the occasion of the bicentennial of the War of 1812, the Government of Canada, responding to recommendations made by the Royal Newfoundland Regiment Advisory Council and similar recommendations made by an advisory committee to the Minister of Canadian Heritage for the War of 1812, awarded the Royal Newfoundland Regiment three battle honours. These were for the victory at Detroit in 1812, for the regiment's role at the battle of Maumee in 1813 and a general "theatre honour", for the regiment's broader service in successful engagements throughout the War of 1812. Colours emblazoned with these battle honours were presented to the regiment's 2nd battalion in the presence of their Colonel-in-Chief, the Princess Royal, in June 2016. The ceremonies coincided with events marking the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel.
The Royal Newfoundland Regiment of Fencible Infantry was disbanded in 1816 following the conclusion of hostilities with both America and Napoleonic France. Newfoundland did not see another military unit in the island until 1824 with the establishment of the Royal Newfoundland Veteran Companies. Although similar in name, this unit consisted of Chelsea Pensioners from the United Kingdom and was not recruited locally. The Newfoundland Companies therefore have no relationship with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.

Newfoundland Regiment in the First World War

Outbreak of war

During the First World War Newfoundland was a largely rural Dominion of the British Empire with a population of 240,000 people, and not yet part of Canada, having, along with the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, been left out of the 1867 confederation of the other colonies of British North America to form the Dominion of Canada. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 led the Government of Newfoundland to recruit a force for service with the British Army. Even though the island had not possessed any formal army organization since 1870, enough men soon volunteered that a whole battalion was formed, and later maintained throughout the war. The first recruits in the regiment were nicknamed the "Blue Puttees" due to the unusual colour of the puttees, chosen due to the shortage of dark khaki woolen material on the island. The blue puttees were quickly abandoned when the first five hundred reached England in October 1914. The headquarters for recruiting and training was supplied by the Church Lads' Brigade, as was the nucleus of the command structure. In fact, the first man to enlist was also a member of the CLB. Bermudian-born Sir Joseph Outerbridge, who had been the Commanding Officer of the CLB from 1890 to 1894, was the Vice President of the Patriotic Association of Newfoundland, which raised and maintained the Newfoundland Regiment, two of his sons serving in the regiment on the Western Front.
The regiment trained at various locations in the United Kingdom and increased from an initial contingent of 500 men to full battalion strength of 1,000 men, before being deployed. After a period of acclimatization in Egypt, the regiment was deployed at Suvla Bay on the Gallipoli peninsula with the 29th Division in support of the Gallipoli Campaign.