The North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment

"North Shore Regiment" redirects here. For the Austalian unit, see 17th Battalion (Australia).

The North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment
Active	1873–1954
Country	Canada
Branch	Canadian Army (Reserve)
Type	Infantry
Role	Infantry

The North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment was a Canadian army unit that was raised in New Brunswick.

This unit consisted primarily of soldiers from the northern part of th province of New Brunswick.

There is an active movement to attempt to make it a unit once again by the few emaining veterans of the time.

The book, "Scarlett Dawn", written by the unit's Roman Catholic Priest and Chaplain, provides one of the best and most accurate assessments of the North Shore Regiment. The author, Father Raymond Myles Hickey was awarded the Military Cross for his self sacrifice and bravery.

Several men in the Regiment died at a little known battle in Carpiquet on July 4, 1944, on Normandy, during their participation in D-Day! Planned by British General Bernard Montgomery, its goal was tp to seize the airport and thus make inaccessible the German armour and infantry units in the east by the seizure of the then strategic city of Caen. The event became known as The Battle of Carpiquet Airport and would proove decisive in the war and the significant role of D Day. The title of the chaplain's book is in fact a reference to the tremendous losses (for a small brigade) incurred by the North Shore in this one battle. A total of 132 casualties, 46 deaths, occurred , leading Father Hickey to term Caen's airport "the graveyard of the regimen."

Sadly, in 1987, while accompanying a few veterans of the unit to mark a monument honouring the dead Canadians rom Restigouche and Northumberland Counties and after an emotional speech about that day, the chaplain died there that evening!

It is noteworthy that the North Shore Regiment was among the first wave of the D Day attack on Hitler's evil and they are honoured every year in the small communities of northern New Brunswick. Father Hickey went on to a teaching career at St. Thomas University and also served as a Parish Priest in Campbellton, N.B. and other areas near his home village of Jacquet River, about 45 minutes from Campbellton.

It recruited two battalions (the 132nd and the 165th) of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the First World War, and saw service itself in Europe in the Second World War. In 1954, it amalgamated with the Carleton and York Regiment and the The New Brunswick Scottish to form the The Royal New Brunswick Regiment. The North Shore Regiment was sent over to England in 1939 with the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. Its first engagement was Normandy, when it landed on Nan-Red Beach near Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer.

Further reading

• Bird, Will R. (1963). North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment. Fredericton: New Brunswick Press. 
• Hickey, Father Raymond (1949). Scarlet Dawn - a story about the North Shore Regiment by its Restigouche County native Chaplain. Campbellton, N.B.: Tribune Press. 

External links

• Regimental history