On a trip to France with the Great War Veterans Association in the early 1920s, Gerald Joseph Whitty visited the memorials erected to honour those who fought and those who fell at the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel.
A veteran of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, Mr. Whitty served in Gallipoli in 1915 but soon after fell ill with typhoid fever. His requests to return to the front before the commencement of the Battle of the Somme were denied due to his health. He was not present on July 1, 1916, when the regiment marched towards no man’s land at Beaumont-Hamel in one of the most devastating events in modern Newfoundland and Labrador history.
When his health improved, Mr. Whitty went on to earn the Military Cross for gallantry at Cambrai. After the war, he remained dedicated to his fellow soldiers and worked with the veterans association to improve veterans’ pensions.
He also played a major role in the development of the National War Memorial on Duckworth Street in St. John’s. And on that trip to Beaumont-Hamel in the early 1920s, he would make one more significant contribution to the way we remember the fallen.
He posed for a photograph.
That photograph has now allowed engineers at Memorial University to create a replica of the most powerful symbol of the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel.
The Danger Tree
Before their advancement on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the soldiers of the Newfoundland Regiment noticed a solitary tree still standing in no man’s land. They called it the Danger Tree.
It was both a landmark they could use for direction and a warning. Enemy fire became particularly concentrated in the tree’s vicinity.
When the order came at 9:15 on the morning of July 1, regiment soldiers left the trench they’d named St. John’s Road and began their advance towards no man’s land. Each man carried over 60 pounds of equipment. And they first had to cross 200 meters of Allied trenches to reach the front lines and, even further beyond, the Danger Tree.
Caught in an impenetrable onslaught of artillery and machine-gun fire, regiment soldiers, as one observer noted, tucked their chins to their shoulders as if marching into a blizzard.
The regiment lost 90 per cent of its soldiers in less than an hour. The last of their numbers falling near the foot of the Danger Tree.
That tree represents the highwater mark of the regiment’s advancement at Beaumont-Hamel. And for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, it resonates with a symbolism that is difficult to describe. A mixture of cultural pride, of courage recognized and of immeasurable sorrow.
Recreating the Danger Tree
Somehow, despite the barrage of fire it received, the Danger Tree stood for years after the battle. But it too was a victim of the war, as it eventually decayed and needed to be replaced. It’s been replaced several times over the past 100 years. And while the replacements maintained the tree’s symbolic importance, they didn’t capture its original appearance.
For years, Veterans Affairs Canada has sought a solution to the problem. And while working with Memorial on ways to celebrate the university’s 100th anniversary as a living memorial and to commemorate the upcoming 110th anniversary of the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel, Veterans Affairs asked the university to use its engineering expertise to build a replica of the Danger Tree to be permanently installed at the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial in France.
“Knowing the [Danger Tree’s] significance, it makes me feel proud to be a part of it.”
There are several confirmed archival photographs of the original Danger Tree. But there is only one we know of with people in it.
The people are important because they provide a reference to determine the Danger Tree’s size and dimensions.
In that singular photograph, Gerald Whitty stands in a three-piece suit, leaning against the Danger Tree and holding one of its branches in his left hand. It seems almost like a moment of embrace between the man and the tree that marks the place where so many of the men he knew had fallen.
Thanks to Mr. Whitty’s photograph, modelling a more historically accurate replica of the Danger Tree is possible.
Now, Memorial’s Department of Technical Services is recreating the Danger Tree. Director Richard Meaney (B.Eng.’87. M.Eng.’92) is leading the team.
The crew at Technical Services is known for turning ideas into reality. They build the parts and tools needed by researchers across campus. They’ve even built rockets for student projects.
Watch a video of the Danger Tree’s fabrication at Technical Services on the St. John’s campus below.
But Mr. Meaney says the Danger Tree is different.
“Most of the shapes we work with are engineered shapes. Rectangles. Triangles. Regular curves. You can write an equation to describe them. So, while we’re using a lot of the same tools, now we’re trying to produce something that’s more organic in nature.”
Referring to the replica’s historical significance, he says, “I hope it’s authentic enough to bring back a true memory of what these young Newfoundlanders experienced more than 100 years ago.”
Jason Stevens (B.Eng.’12, M.Eng.’13, MBA’20), manager of the mechanical division, took Mr. Whitty’s photograph and turned the two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional model using computer-aided design software.
The data is sent to one of the shop’s computer numerical control machines, where the material being used, a durable polyurethane foam, will be milled into these organic shapes.
Due to the Danger Tree’s height, it’s being built in sections. Chris Ryan (B.Sc.’08) and Simon Ernst are the primary machinists working on the replica. They’re stacking the pieces of the tree together one section at a time, using dowels for precision placement and a special epoxy for bonding.
Mr. Ryan has an academic background in military history and has taken a particular interest in the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel.
“I’ve read about that story my whole life,” he said. “Knowing the significance, it makes me feel proud to be a part of it.”
Once the solid core is complete, it will be wrapped in fibreglass. And artists from The Rooms will paint the structure, bringing the final details of the tree to life.
The finished Danger Tree will be handed over to Veterans Affairs in May. The Canadian Armed Forces will then transport the monument across the Atlantic to the memorial at Beaumont-Hamel where it will be unveiled at a ceremony on June 30, 2026.
To see what they saw
When Gerald Whitty travelled to visit Beaumont-Hamel, he saw something of what his fellow soldiers had seen on that fateful day in 1916: a tree, decimated, but still standing.
What he couldn’t have known back then was that, by simply standing next to the Danger Tree when the shutter clicked and his photo was taken, he started a story that would take over a century to complete.
Mr. Whitty died in 1924 when he was struck by a speeding car. His photos, over 100 of them, were passed on to his family and kept safe. They found their way to The Rooms Provincial Archives Division, where the image of the Danger Tree was identified, and then that image made its way to the team at Memorial’s Technical Services.
And soon, we too will be able to stand at the memorial in Beaumont-Hamel and see the Danger Tree. We will be able to see something of what the regiment saw when they answered the call and marched out into no man’s land in the face of the greatest odds.
