Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae
Died: January 28, 1918

Regimental Number:	877621	Survived War:	No
Force:	Army	Regiment:	Canadian Army Medical Corps
Battalion:	3rd Canadian General Hospital	Company:
Place of Birth:	Guelph, Ontario	Country:	Canada
Next of Kin:	Janet Eckford McCrea, mother, 211 Paisley Street, Guelph, Ontario	Address at Enlistment:	At sea, between Canada and England. Wired his desire to enlist from the ship.
Date of Birth:	November 30, 1872	Trade or Calling:	Physician
Marital Status:	Single	Prior Military Experience:	Yes
Place of Enlistment:	Valcartier, Quebec	Date of Enlistment:	September 22, 1914
Age at enlistment:	41	Height:	6 Feet Inches
Chest:	40 Inches	Expansion:	4 Inches
Religion:	Presbyterian	Enlisted or Conscripted:	Enlisted
Saw service in:	Europe
Cause of Death:	Died of Illness	Battle Died/Wounded:
Date of Death:	January 28, 1918	Age at Death:	45
Buried at:	Wimereux Communal Cemetery, France	Plot:	IV. H. 3.
Commemorated:	Various
Prisoner of war:	No	Interned:
Gender:	Male	Ethnic Origin:	Caucasian

LAC Reference: RG 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 1Box 7202 - 2

Canadian Virtual War Memorial Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Rank	Regiment	Unit	Company
Lieutenant Colonel	Canadian Army Medical Corps	3rd Canadian General Hospital
Major	Canadian Field Artillery	1st Brigade Field Artillery

Images

Memorial to John McCrae at Essex Farm Cemetery, Ypres

Hand written "In Flanders Fields" dated Dec. 8 1915

Soldier, explorer, physician, educator and poet. Author of "In Flanders Fields", possibly the best known poem in the world. Colonel John McCrae (1872-1918) was born in Guelph, Ontario, studied medicine at the University of Toronto where he graduated at the top of his class. He enlisted and fought in the Boer War in South Africa. On his return he took a fellowship at McGill University in Montreal. McCrae served as a special professor in pathology at the University of Vermont, an associate of medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal and a lecturer in pathology and medicine at McGill University. He was also employed as a pathologist at Montreal General Hospital and as a physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital ( Montreal) for Infectious Diseases. When the First World War began in 1914, McCrae enlisted as the Brigade Surgeon in the First Brigade of Canadian Field Artillery. He was responsible for a field dressing station at the front and treated those wounded during the Second Battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915. As well as performing his duties as surgeon, he also served in the Artillery, when needed. In the summer of 1915, McCrae was transferred from the artillery Brigade to the Number 3 Canadian General Hospital in Wimereaux, France, where he was second in command of medical services. On January 24, 1918 he was appointed as consulting physician to the First British Army, the first Canadian so honoured. 4 days later, on January 28 th, McCrea died from pneumonia, complicated by meningitis. He is buried at Wimereaux Cemetery in France. At McCrae's funeral procession, Generals and nursing sisters stood side-by-side, silently watching the cortege pass. While an extraordinary soldier and physician, Colonel McCrea is best known for his poem “In Flanders Fields”. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915 and to the war in general. McCrea had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, French, and Germans in the Ypres salient. McCrae later wrote: "I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done." The next day McCrae witnessed the burial of a good friend, Lieut. Alexis Helmer. Later that day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the field dressing station, McCrea composed the poem. A young NCO, delivering mail, watched him write it. When McCrae finished writing, he took his mail from the soldier and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the Sergeant-major. Cyril Allinson was moved by what he read: "The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene." Colonel McCrae was dissatisfied with the poem, and tossed it away. A fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915. For his contributions as a surgeon, the main street in Wimereaux is named “Rue McCrea”. His famous poem has become the lasting memorial to the war.

Link To	Description
Newspaper Extract	The Battle of Amiens - Account by Captain R. J. Renison C.C.
Newspaper Extract	In Flanders Fields - Stephen Leacock on John McCrae
War Diary Entry	1st. Canadian Field Artillery Brigade Jun 01, 1915