'REMEMBRANCE DAY' in London, England, November 11

   American celebrates 'Veterans Day' But not with the Pomp and Circumstance as is done in England     

WW1 British deaths: 940,00. 1,700,000 wounded....US deaths: 117,002. 204,000 wounded

 Casualty statistics for World War I vary to a great extent; estimates of total deaths range from 9 million to over 15 million.........The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was about 40 million: estimates range from around 15 to 22 million deaths^[and about 23 million wounded military personnel, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history.

   'We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields'
                          

                                             'IN FLANDERS FIELDS'... POEM

 The World’s Most Famous WAR MEMORIAL POEM

By Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. (He died days later, Ypres, Belgium WWI)

                                 "......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 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

Composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915
during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium.......... Colonel John McCrae, author

     Fallen soldiers were often buried on the battle field, covered over by time and forgotten....(Right) British soldiers being 'whistled' to charge towards the German machine gun positions, 200 yards away.

Colonel John McCrae.....Died, May 3, 1915, just days after writing this poem in his friend's memory, in this town below...Ypres, Belgium

During the second battle of Ypres, Belgium.. May 2, 1915, John McCrae’s close friend and former student Alexis Helmer was killed by a German shell. That evening, in the absence of a Chaplain, John McCrae recited from memory a few passages from the Church of England’s “Order of the Burial of the Dead”. For security reasons Helmer’s burial in Essex Farm Cemetery was performed in complete darkness.

........The next day, May 3, 1915, Sergeant-Major Cyril Allinson was delivering mail. McCrae was sitting at the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the YserCanal, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, Belgium...……As John McCrae was writing his In Flanders Fields poem, Allinson silently watched and later recalled, “His face was very tired but calm as he wrote. He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."
............Within moments, John McCrae had completed the “In Flanders Fields” poem and when he was done, without a word, McCrae took his mail and handed the poem to Allinson..."I may not be here'".
Allinson was deeply moved:

........“The (Flanders Fields) poem was 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."

                                 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.

   

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