Danger Tree
The Danger Tree ( English for tree of danger ) is a memorial in the Newfoundland Memorial Park near Beaumont-Hamel , northern France. It is reminiscent of the British Royal Newfoundland Regiment , which went to the Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916 during the First World War and lost several hundred soldiers in one day. The memorial marks the point where losses were highest.
history
On the first day of the Somme campaign, 800 soldiers from the Royal Newfoundland Regiment emerged from the trenches to intervene in the fighting at Beaumont-Hamel. The next day only 68 men reported back to the regimental roll call. 255 were dead, 386 were wounded and 91 were reported missing. All officers who left the trench were wounded or killed.
The Danger Tree had been ordered as the Newfoundlanders' assembly point in no man's land between the front lines . At this point you should receive your new action plan. However, no one had realized that the Germans could easily see the tree and targeted fire at it, killing the soldiers who had already reached this assembly point. Rumor has it that no one made it past the tree alive in the first days of the Somme campaign.
Today, a group of small trees grow next to the bare trunk of the "tree of danger," which are believed to arise from the same root system as the original tree.
literature
- David Macfarlane (2001): The Danger Tree . Canada: Walker & Company, 320, ISBN 978-0-8027-7616-7 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 4 ′ 29.6 " N , 2 ° 38 ′ 59.6" E