110: In Flanders Fields

 

This year (2025) marks the 110th Anniversary of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae’s famous Poem “In Flanders Fields.”

It was written in 1915, as the Military Doctor treated the wounded from the Battlefields of the First World War.

Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae was a Canadian Poet, Physician, Author, Artist and Soldier during World War I and a Surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres, in Belgium.

On January 28, 1918, while still commanding No. 3 Canadian General Hospital (McGill) at Boulogne, McCrae died of Pneumonia at the British General Hospital in Wimereux, France.

He was buried the following day in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission section of Wimereux Cemetery, just a couple of miles up the coast from Boulogne, with full Military Honors.

He was 45 years old.

The Canadian Medical Association awards the John McCrae Memorial Medal to a health services member of the Canadian Armed Forces for exemplary service.

McCrae was designated a Person of National Historic Significance in 1946.

“In Flanders Fields”:

 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders Fields.

 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders Fields.