Unknown soldier being laid to rest

Newfoundland Regiment member's remains brought home from France after years-long effort

- SARAH SMELLIE

Frank Sullivan, left, Berkley Lawrence and Gary Browne of the Royal Canadian Legion helped bring the remains of an unknown Newfoundland soldier home to St. John's from France. The remains will be buried Monday, also known as Memorial Day in Newfoundland and Labrador.

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. 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.

Berkley Lawrence was among the delegation from Newfoundland who accompanied the soldier's remains home from France last month in advance of Monday's ceremony, at which the Unknown Soldier will be placed in a black granite tomb at the National War Memorial in St. John's.

Lawrence served in the Canadian military for 33 years, and he is now the first vice-president of the Royal Canadian Legion.

His grandfather, Pte. Stephen Lawrence, was among the 800 members of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment who charged over the top of the trenches, armed with only rifles and bayonets, toward the Germans' machine-gun fire at Beaumont-Hamel on the morning of July 1, 1916. More than 700 men were killed or wounded as the frontal assault became a slaughter that nearly wiped out the regiment.