It is believed that John McCrae wrote the famous poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ during the evening of May 3rd 1915 – after carrying out a funeral service for a friend during the Second Battle of Ypres.
John McCrae was a Canadian doctor, and is reported to have written the poem while sitting in the back of an ambulance near a battlefield casualty station just north of Ypres.
The poem was published in the British magazine Punch in December 1915, and went on to become highly popular and widely quoted.
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.
McCrae died of pneumonia in January 1918 – and is buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission section of Wimereux Cemetery, near Boulogne, in France.