October 4, 2024
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Members of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment stand guard over the remains of an Unknown Newfoundland soldier as he lies in state at the Confederation Building in St. John’s on Friday, June 28, 2024. The remains of a soldier from Newfoundland killed in the battlefields of France during the First World War will be laid to rest in St. John’s Monday, bringing an emotional end to a years-long effort in a place still shaken and forever changed by the bloodshed.

Newfoundland soldier who died in the First World War laid to rest at home

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Hundreds of people filled the downtown streets in Newfoundland and Labrador’s capital city on Monday to pay their respects to a soldier from the First World War who died on the battlefields of France and has finally returned home.

The unknown Newfoundland soldier was lowered into a black granite tomb at around 11 a.m. local time at the National War Memorial in St. John’s. N.L. The morning was grey and wet, but the rain stopped for the soldier’s reinterment, which was proceeded by a powerful performance of the “Ode to Newfoundland.”

As members of the Royal Canadian Armed Forces gently lay a temporary cover over the soldier’s final resting place, more than 100 years after he was killed, the skies opened up again.

“We therefore commit this body to the ground,” Canadian Armed Forces chaplain Lt.-Col. Shawn Samson recited while standing at the head of the soldier’s tomb before a crowd that included Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Gov. Gen. Mary Simon. “Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.”

July 1 dawns first in Canada’s easternmost province and is honoured as Memorial Day, not Canada Day, as in the rest of the country. It’s a time to remember those from Newfoundland and Labrador who have been killed in battle, with a particular focus on the hundreds of young men from the Newfoundland Regiment who died during the disastrous fight at Beaumont-Hamel, in northern France, during the First World War.

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