Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae was a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and soldier during the First World War and a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres, in Belgium. He is best known for writing the famous war memorial poem "In Flanders Fields". McCrae died of pneumonia near the end of the war. His famous poem is a threnody, a genre of lament.
McCrae c. 1914
Birthplace of John McCrae
John McCrae in 1912
McCrae's medals for the Boer War and First World War
During the First World War, the Second Battle of Ypres was fought from 22 April – 25 May 1915 for control of the tactically important high ground to the east and south of the Flemish town of Ypres in western Belgium. The First Battle of Ypres had been fought the previous autumn. The Second Battle of Ypres was the first mass use by Germany of poison gas on the Western Front.
German diagram showing the new front line after the 2nd Battle of Ypres
The First German Gas Attack at Ypres by William Roberts depicting the German gas attack on French and Canadian soldiers
George Nasmith, the head of the field laboratory for the Canadian Expeditionary Force, advised a Canadian field ambulance officer to pass the order to use urine to counteract the gas.
Night photograph of German barrage on Allied trenches at Ypres (probably the Second Battle of Ypres)
