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 agoWe 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.

This poem was written by Lieutenant – Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian physician, after the death of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, on May 2nd 1915.

A plaque containing the poem can be found on the wall of a concrete bunker that was used as a field hospital.

Not far away, in graveyards throughout the area, thousands of simple white headstones carry the names of the war dead.

For those British and Commonwealth soldiers whose graves are unknown, the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing in Ypres, Belgium, is dedicated to them. The walls of this memorial bear thousands of names.

The ‘Last Post’ is played at the Menin Gate every evening.