In Flanders Fields
Municipality/Province: Richmond Hill, ON
Memorial number: 35056-017
Type: Stone, plaque
Address: 8640 Yonge Street
Location: Peace Park
GPS coordinates: Lat: 43.8374714 Long: -79.429468
Photo credit: Tim Laye, Ontario War Memorials
Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae was born in Guelph, Ontario in 1872, he served with an artillery battery in the South African War and had a successful civilian medical career. When the First World War broke out in 1914, the patriotic 41-year-old enlisted again and would be appointed as a medical officer with the First Brigade of the Canadian Field Artillery.
During the Second Battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915, McCrae was tending to the wounded in a part of Belgium traditionally called Flanders. On May 2, a close friend was killed in action and this painful loss inspired McCrae to write In Flanders Fields the next day. It would be published in Britain’s Punch magazine and quickly became one of the best-known poems of the war, helping make the poppy an international symbol of remembrance. Sadly, Lieutenant-Colonel McCrae would not survive the conflict, dying of illness in January 1918.
Inscription found on memorial
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
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae
May 1915
Street view
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