John McCrae

McCrae graduated with a medical degree from the University of Toronto in 1898 and worked briefly as an intern with the brilliant William OSLER at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. In 1899 McCrae was granted a fellowship in pathology at McGill University but got permission to postpone his studies in order to fight in the SOUTH AFRICAN WAR. He distinguished himself as a lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Artillery.

After he returned to Montreal in 1901, McCrae served as resident pathologist at the Montreal General Hospital in 1902 and then as associate in medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1904, as physician at the Alexandra Hospital in 1908, and as lecturer in medicine at McGill in 1909. Described by a colleague as "the most talented physician of his generation," he co-wrote A text-book of pathology for students of medicine in 1912. McCrae occasionally published poems in the University Magazine, many of which had death as their theme.

In Flanders Fields Manuscript
McCrae jotted down this most famous of war poems in 20 minutes during the Battle of Ypres (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-128809).

McCrae, John
He died of pneumonia at the hospital of which he was in charge in 1918 (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-19919).

John McCrae and his dog Bonneau, 1914
(courtesy Library and Archives Canada/

McCrae in the Canadian Expeditionary Force
On the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, McCrae enlisted as a major and brigade surgeon of the 1st Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery, in the CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE. After fighting at Neuve-Chapelle, France, his brigade was moved in April 1915 to Belgium, to a quiet section in the Ypres salient, which was held by Canadian infantry. On 22 April the Germans made a devastating and unexpected attack on the salient (the second BATTLE OF YPRES), using deadly chlorine gas for the first time. Half of the brigade died in the battle.

McCrae wrote his poem "In Flanders Fields" while he was waiting in his dugout for the wounded to arrive. It was inspired particularly by the death of his close friend Alexis Helmer on 2 May. After it was published in the London magazine Punch in December 1915, it quickly became the most popular English-language poem of the war.

In June 1915 an exhausted McCrae left the artillery brigade to become lieutenant-colonel in charge of medicine at No. 3 Canadian General Hospital. He insisted on living in a tent like his comrades at the front and was deeply distressed by the carnage of the war. On 24 Jan 1918 he was appointed consulting physician to the 1st British army, the first Canadian to be so honoured. McCrae, who suffered from asthma all his life, contracted pneumonia, complicated by meningitis, and died four days later. He was buried in the cemetery at Wimereux, France.

Excerpts from the letters written to his mother during the South African War were published in the Evening Mercury (Guelph, Ont). His poems originally appeared in literary magazines and a collection was issued posthumously as In Flanders fields and other poems (1919). The house where John McCrae was born is a national historic site and has been converted into a museum.

See also IN FLANDERS FIELDS MUSIC.

Author JAMES MARSH

Suggested Reading
John F. Prescott, In Flanders fields: the story of John McCrae (1985).

Links to Other Sites
THE MEMORY PROJECT
The website for The Memory Project, a major initiative dedicated to recording and preserving Canadian veterans' first-hand accounts of their military service during the Second World War and Korean War. Click on "The Memory Project Link" to access this remarkable online collection to hear interviews with individual veterans from all branches of the Canadian Armed Forces. See also related digitized artefacts and memorabilia. From the Historica-Dominion Institute.

John McCrae's War: In Flanders Fields
A review of the documentary film "John McCrae's War: In Flanders Fields." From the Manitoba Library Association.

John McCrae
Watch the Heritage Minute about John McCrae from the Historica-Dominion Institute. See also related online learning resources.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae
This Veterans Affairs Canada website is dedicated to John McCrae, a doctor and teacher, who served in both the South African War and the First World War. Includes the text of his famous poem "In Flanders Fields."

In Flanders Fields
An information site for "In Flanders Fields," an award-winning documentary film about Canadian military action at Ypres, the Somme, Vimy Ridge, and Passchendaele during the First World War. Click on the link at the top of the page to read an online copy of the full film script. From The War Amps.