Lieutenant Colonel T.G. Mathias
&
Major Adolph E. Bernard, M.C.
Royal Newfoundland Regiment

Life is made up of meetings and partings, and we, who served side but side in the Great War, shall ever bear the memories of bitter partings from good and better friends. Those who have died have welded us together with unbreakable bonds, and it is up to those of use who are left to stand firm together.

 (A.E. Bernard, The Veteran, 1920)

Born on 12 August 1878, Thomas Gilbert Mathias had been commissioned with the Welsh Regiment since 1899. On 27 June 1918, he transferred to Royal Newfoundland Regiment to relieve Major A.E. Bernard, who had temporarily replaced Lieutenant Colonel J.S. Woodruffe. Mathias remained in command until the armistice when he was succeeded by Bernard, the first Newfoundlander to officially lead the regiment.

Born in France on 2 May 1880, Adolph Ernest Bernard was school master and French teacher at Bishop Feild College, where future premier Joey Smallwood was one of his students. He enlisted in the Newfoundland Regiment and received a commission in September 1914. He earned the Military Cross in June 1916 and briefly took command from Woodruffe at the end of June 1918. After relinquishing command to Mathias, Bernard returned to England for a senior officer course on 30 June.

Bernard returned to France in October 1918 and officially took over the regiment in March 1919. The Newfoundland Government had wished to see an original volunteer command the unit on entering Germany and upon its return home.

In 1921, Bernard married Maud Armorel Harris, the daughter of Newfoundland Governor Charles Alexander Harris. His appointment as trade commissioner to Italy prompted one newspaper to complain:

a clever French and language scholar; but about as suitable for a Trade Representative as any other good Schoolmaster. He earned, perhaps, some consideration for his services in the Army, though there is many a private of that same Newfld. Regiment, who has been compelled to leave his native country without having received any consideration.

Bernard died in London England on 22 June 1937.