While the rest of the country readies its displays for Canada Day, here we remember fireworks of a different sort.

Monday marks 103 years since Beaumont Hamel.

Of the close to 800 regimental soldiers who took part in the July Drive, just 68 answered roll call the following morning, most having been killed or wounded.

The offensive began on the morning of July 1, 1916. At 6:00 a.m., Allied Forces pounding the Germans with artillery for about an hour.

At 7:20 a.m., they detonated more than 18,000 kilograms of explosives under Hawthorn Ridge, an important German stronghold on its front line, about 700 metres to the west of the village of Beaumont Hamel. The blast turned the area into a giant crater which can still be seen today.

The battle was not the only place the Royal Newfoundland Regiment fought and died during the First World War, but it has come to symbolize much about that time for the province, from bravery and sacrifice to the senselessness and violence of the conflict.

As happens every year, at 11:00 a.m. a ceremony of remembrance will begin at the National War Memorial on Duckworth Street, as well as at memorials in communities across the province.