Posted on 12/08/2003 1:33:21 PM PST by Clive
LCol McCrae Publishes a Poem
By Charmion Chaplin-Thomas
December 8, 1915
In London, England, the popular magazine Punch, or The London Charivari publishes an anonymous 15-line poem entitled "In Flanders Fields". It is in the bottom right-hand corner of the left-hand page, surrounded by heavily comic articles about Christmas shopping, small children and Scots - topics Punch readers always laugh at - and a beautifully drawn but highly insulting cartoon by G.L. Stampa, in which a working-class mother walking home from market threatens her dawdling child with the Army recruiting authorities: "Come along, slacker, or I?ll put Lord Derby on to you!" You know she is poor and vulgar because she is fat, unfashionably dressed and loaded down with groceries.
The unnamed author of "In Flanders Fields" is medical officer Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae of No 3 Canadian General Hospital (McGill). On May 3, when he wrote it, he was serving with the 1st Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery, commanded by Brigadier E.W.B. "Dinky" Morrison, DSO. The day before was just another terrible day for everyone else in the Ypres salient, but not for LCol McCrae; that morning, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer of 2 Battery was blown to bits by a shell that dropped right in front of him on the gun line. The popular young officer was a friend from before the war, when both men belonged to the same Montréal artillery regiment. During a lull in the shooting, two gunners dug a grave for Lt Helmer while others collected the scattered remains, which they wrapped in an Army blanket secured with safety pins. When the time came to bury him, the chaplains were at work with an infantry burial party, so LCol McCrae performed the simple funeral himself. At the end of the day, LCol McCrae wrote in his diary: "Heavy gunfire again this morning. Lieut. Helmer was killed... at the guns. He was our Mess Secy. and a very nice boy - graduate of RMC and McGill... I said the Committal service over him, as well as I could from memory." Boulogne, 1916: LCol John McCrae of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, with his dog Bonneau. National Archives of Canada
LCol McCrae is an old soldier himself, a veteran of South Africa and known to lend a hand at the guns when the men are particularly hard-pressed. South Africa was no preparation for Ypres, though, where his world consisted of a muddy canal bank accommodating a warren of dug-outs and the stunted remains of trees, and the stifled cries of the wounded brought to the tented field hospital. It was nearly suicide to try to drive or walk on the frequently shelled road, and the only places to go for a break from surgery was the vehicle park or the ever-expanding cemetery. The cemetery was full of wild flowers, especially the poppies that grew more lushly that spring than at any time in living memory.
Sergeant Major Cyril Allinson was distributing the mail when he saw LCol McCrae sitting on the step of an ambulance, writing on a pad of paper; he approached and waited for his superior to look up and, when he handed over some letters, LCol McCrae gave him the pad. SM Allinson liked the poem so much he memorized it, and gave the page to Brig. Morrison, a well-known journalist and author in private life before the war. Brig. Morrison not only recognized the high literary quality of the poem, but also its potential value as a inspirational piece, for recruiting is slowing down and new troops are badly needed. With LCol McCrae's permission, he submitted it to several London papers and magazines. The Spectator rejected it, but Punch accepted.
As for LCol McCrae, he serves out the rest of the war at Boulogne with No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, soon becoming its commanding officer. He is so affected by the terrible conditions soldiers endure in the trenches that he lives much of the time in a small tent, refusing to move into a hut with a stove. His health breaks down badly in 1917, with prolonged bouts of bronchitis complicated by asthma, and eventually deteriorates into the pneumonia that kills him in January 1918.
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.
Bump!
Some years, read by one of the Eagle Scouts of my old troop. Other years, by a Legionnaire from my post.
Looking out over the cemetary, I can hear a hundred voices reciting that final verse...
In Flanders Field-Where Soldiers Sleep And Poppies Grow, 1890, Robert Vonnoh
Private Roy Dransfield, 2nd Battalion AIF, killed in action, Pozieres, France, 23rd July 1916.
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