John McCrae, Author of In Flanders Fields
Lt.-Col. John McCrae and
his dog Bonneau, ca. 1914
A native of Guelph, Ontario, and a veteran of the South African War
(1899-1902), John McCrae began the First World War as a surgeon attached to
the 1st Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery,
1st Canadian Division. After undergoing a
baptism by fire at Neuve Chapelle, France, in March 1915, the Canadians
moved to Flanders in mid-April, taking up position in the salient around
the Belgian town of Ypres.
On April 22-23, in their first major battle,
they distinguished themselves by holding out against the first German gas
attack of the war while others around them fled. John McCrae was the
officer in charge of a medical aid post in a dugout cut into the bank of
the Yser canal, a few miles to the northeast of Ypres. Here, on May 2,
McCrae's good friend, 22-year old Lieutenant Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, was
blown apart by enemy artillery fire. With the parts of Helmer's body
collected in a blanket, McCrae himself read the funeral service.
The next day, McCrae, who had been publishing poetry for many years,
completed In Flanders Fields. Eyewitness accounts vary in detail,
but agree that he worked on the poem while sitting on the back step of an
ambulance near his medical aid post. In the field around him crosses
marked the graves of dead soldiers, including those of Helmer and other
Canadians killed the previous day. Accounts also agree that poppies grew
in the area at the time and McCrae's own notes refer to birds singing
despite the noise of battle.
John McCrae set the poem aside to concentrate on caring for the wounded
at Ypres. He took it up again that fall after leaving the Ypres salient to
serve in the relatively quieter circumstances of No. 3 Canadian General
Hospital at Boulogne. When at last he had worked it to a satisfactory
state he sent it to the British publication the Spectator, only to see
his work rejected. He resubmitted it to Punch magazine, which published
it anonymously, in its issue of December 8, 1915.
In Flanders Fields
immediately gained popularity amongst the soldiers in the trenches as
an evocative summation of their view of the war. This feeling grew as the
war continued until, in the words of one writer, its images became "an
eternal motif, part of the collective memory of the war." Its author,
whose identity soon became known, continued to serve as a medical officer
until, overcome by fatigue and stress, he died of pneumonia at Wimereux,
France on January 28, 1918.