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 falling 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.

John McCrae

Physician, British Expeditionary Force

The bunkers above were the front line medical bunkers that Dr McCrae worked in at Essex Farm while in Ypres. Here one of his good friends died - that may have in part inspired the above poem or it could have been inspired by what he was seeing going on around him.

This cemetery below beside the front lines at Essex Farm had about 5,000 graves. Though the numbers after awhile began to numb me at the various places we stopped. Here the trenches never moved very far, in this sector advances were measured in meters and the trenches at times were as few as 10 to 15 meters apart.

This cluster of gravestones in that cemetery abutting one another meant that the bodies were identifiable as a group of men, but not as individuals — they were killed all at once, but due to whatever circumstances of their death or recovery, individual identification was impossible at the time. This is what was done when burial was done at the front. It was a familiar sight to see a cluster like this though this was a little larger than normal. We were at this Essex Farm Cemetery on March 13, 2016.

Note the dates on the grave markers - March 13, 1916.  

Yes, it made my eyes very moist. And for the rest of the day too.

In this grave yard were graves of men and boys as young as 15.

The Bedford House Cemetery, below, was behind a speciality hospital where Dr. McCrae also worked. It is about 10 miles away from the front lines as were several hospitals specialized in particular wounds. I do not know if Dr McCrae worked here at that time. After the poem was published and the British Army found out it was by their John McCrae he was sent to a nicer hospital on the French coast where he later died of pneumonia and asthma. Reportedly, not happy to be so far from the front.

These sites, while containing the dead from the hospital, also became collection points for bodies recovered from the field in later years, especially during the early 1930s when a major effort was made to recover bodies and consolidate cemeteries.

A Belgian Cemetery, near Hooglede

and without much effort you can figure out what an "unknown soldier who died in the service of his country" or something like that reads in Dutch. There were a lot of headstones like this. Most of this cemetery, and it was very large, was occupied by soldiers killed in a series of fighting that occurred in this part of the line in September and October of 1918, one month prior to the war's end.

And Germans too. Hundreds of thousands of German were killed here. Over the years their cemeteries have been consolidated, as late as the 1950s. Among those buried at Langemark are German school boys whose infamous commander sent them into battle singing. Some 4,000 were killed in two minutes.

Oh, and names on walls, here Germans on Oak at Langemark Cemetery, the British on marble at Tye Cot and at the Menin Gate and others, and everywhere books with names printed and names on stones.

Sculpture of grieving parents at the German cemetery at Vlasdo.

The French have taken their dead back to France but left behind this 16h century Crucifix from Brittany. Back in the 16th Century it was thought to ward off The Plague. It stands beside….

this farm field, the place of the first gas attack of the war. Our guide read us an account of a German soldier's record of advancing over the battlefield after the gas was released and seeing the death of all living things, rats, rabbits, horses, men, everything. And the description of their deaths was horrible.

This Canadian statute with rifle "at rest" is at the site where Canadians successfully withstood the second gas attack. They used urine soaked cloths as breathing filters, the atmosphere kept the gas low to the ground and they stood high above the gas — dangerous as the Germans are coming at them shooting. With great loss of life, the Canadians against all odds held the line. 

This plaque tells the story of their great accomplishment at Passchendale, one of the battles that was part of the greater Ypres area salient.

Tyn Cot Cemetery,  largest Commonwealth Cemetery in the world, 35,000 graves, all visible. No rolling hills, just all laid out row after row.  here is Patt walking lower right.

This register of names came from Menin Gate, but registers abound

There are no registers for Hill 60. Both Patt and I commented about the same time that it felt strange to know that there were men who were part of the hill that we were walking on and that there were others entombed below. Hill 60 was one of the hills (two mines set off at this hill) - part of the 19 massive underground mines that were set off under German fortifications at one time by the Allies in June 1917.   

For more than a year, the allies dug tunnels under the German trenches and fortifications and carried in tons of high explosives. This story is well told in a movie entitled "Hill 60" produced by the Australians. When the mines blew up the Germans were blown up and then up the hills came charges of British and Commonwealth soldiers. The unstable earth resulting from the massive explosions and subsequent shelling and continued fighting left many bodies on the field of battle. There is a marker on this crater that indicates the front lines at one time were only about 30 feet apart.

The hill is still quite pockmarked. Very quiet while we were there. We went on our own as we did to several of the sites, for others we had a guide. This we thought was certainly a place for reflection.

The are even shell marks are still distinguishable in the crater — there are two craters here at Hill 60.  While we were there a train went through the cut in the hill, a feature distinguishing this place.

We liked our guide and the Dutch couple we were with on our tour. Our guide showed us this tombstone after hearing our conversation on the tour. The guide said he did not often show the headstone.  

The epithet is strong.  

On Flanders Fields….