In Flanders Fields

With the publication of this poem, written as a way to cope with the grief of losing a close friend in battle, Guelph son John McCrae brought home the horror and sacrifice of modern warfare.

Born in Guelph, Ontario on November 30, 1872 to Lieutenant Colonel David McCrae, and his wife Janet Simpson Eckford McCrae, John McCrae was an intelligent and charismatic man. He started his education in Guelph, first at Central Public School (just around the corner from the Main Branch of the Guelph Public Library!), before attending GCVI. After graduating at the top of his medical school class at the University of Toronto in 1898, he enlisted as an artillery officer during the Second Boer War in South Africa, where he was assigned to the 16th Field Battery of the Royal Canadian Artillery in which he commanded the 2nd section of D Battery. While in South Africa, McCrae and the troops of D Battery were attached to General Cunningham's brigade and saw action near the city of Pretoria. One of the last assignments McCrae and his troops completed before returning to Canada was the guarding of a railroad near Machadordorp, a town that the South African fighters used as a base of operations during battle.

Upon his return to Canada, where he was celebrated as a returning war hero, he accepted a fellowship in the Pathology department at Montreal's McGill University, which he had deferred two years earlier to enlist in the war effort. After finishing his fellowship, the next few years were a very busy time for McCrae, as he first moved to the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1904, where he served as an associate of medicine while also serving as Resident House Officer at the Toronto General Hospital. It was also during this time that he was appointed a Special Professor of Pathology at the University of Vermont, a position he would hold until 1911, in addition to maintaining his own private medical practice. In the midst of Dr. McCrae's very busy medical practice in 1909, he contributed to a 10-volume medical text, Osler's Modern Medicine, and in 1912 he also helped to co-author another medical textbook on pathology.

On August 4th, 1914, England and the Commonwealth countries entered Word War One, and on September 22, on route from Canada to England, John McCrae once again enlisted to serve his country. However, he was no longer the young 20 something that had first fought in the Boer War. By the time that he enlisted to fight in the First World War, he was 41 years old, and had not had recent artillery experience. As a result, he was not placed in an artillery unit as he desired - but was instead named Brigade Surgeon. However, this did not deter McCrae's fighting spirit; he routinely refused to wear the Red Cross Arm-band of a non-combat medical officer, and could often be seen wearing his revolver and sword. By February of 1915, McCrae, along with the First Brigade, had landed in France. However, it would not be until April 22nd 1915 that McCrae and his unit would see heavy military action, in the form of a German instigated chlorine attack. Five days before the attack McCrae was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. During this period McCrae once again displayed his heroic fighting spirit, by defying established military rules for medical staff and routinely travelling out to the field to attend to the wounded soldiers. This defiance was extremely brave of McCrae, as the fighting in World War One was some of the most intense he had ever seen - combat during World War One was unlike any other battle in history; the use of modern technology and chemical warfare made fighting extremely dangerous.

The brutal nature of World War One weighed heavily on McCrae's mind. The Second Battle of Ypres, as the April 1915 battle McCrae and his troops had participated in would come to be known, was devastating for British and Allied troops - by the end of the battle 70,000 Allied troops had been injured. Many fellow soldiers noticed a shift in McCrae during this period, remarking that he was no longer the quick to laugh, gregarious officer they remembered, and that he had become depressed or battle worn. During the subsequent battles, McCrae would have seen many of his friends hurt or killed in battle, and in fact it was the death of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer that inspired McCrae to take a moment and write the poem In Flanders's Fields, a poem that would become an iconic symbol for not only the war, but also for Remembrance Day.

Though he wrote what would become a lasting symbol of the war, McCrae was unimpressed with the poem and threw it away. It was due to the efforts of another officer, who submitted the poem to the English magazine Punch, that In Flanders Fields would be published on December 8, 1915. Having his poem gain wide recognition did not seem to improve McCrae's mood however. After about 1917, Allied morale was at an all-time low; horrific losses during battles such as Passchendaele, and a general sense of war weariness were all causes. McCrae's mood seemed to mirror that of the Allies. He was tired of war and ill. Regardless of this depression, on January 24, 1918, he was the first Canadian to be named Consulting Physician to the 1st British Army. Unfortunately, McCrae would not hold this position for very long. On January 28th he contracted pneumonia and meningitis and died shortly thereafter. The large turn-out to McCrae's funeral was a testament to how well-liked he was by his fellow soldiers and medical personnel, as people lined up on both sides of the road to watch his funeral cortege. John McCrae was buried with full military honors in Wimereux, France.

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