Missing Soldiers of Fromelles
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‘In Flanders Fields’
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Map printed on Page 5 of the Mercury (Hobart, Tasmania) on Monday, 24 July 1916. Australian Newspaper beta citation: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1041253.
Translation (from Google)
French
German
The Somme Offensive
¤ 1916 Somme Map
¤ British Plan 1 July 1916
¤ Battle of the Somme (Wikipedia)
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Born in Guelph, Ontario, in 1872 Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae was a Canadian poet, physician, author and soldier, according to Wikipedia. Grandson of Scottish immigrants, McCrae apparently penned ‘In Flanders Fields’ on the 3rd May 1915 at a field dressing station near the Canal de l’Yser, near Ypres.
Just as the red poppy has come to symbolize remembrance and is used by the Returned and Services League of Australia as a significant motif on and around 11 November annually, this poem has come to represent the grotesque sacrifice of World War One and the horrific blood-letting which occurred on the Western Front.
The author went to France in WWI as a medical officer with the first Canadian contingent and background on the famous surgeon can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCrae.
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.
— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)
