Missing Soldiers of Fromelles
Discussion Group

‘In Flanders Fields’

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About The Group

Discussion Papers
  ¤ Call For Government Action
  ¤ Putting To Rest The Missing
  ¤ Rights Of War Dead
  ¤ World's Best Practice
  ¤ Questions for CWGC
  ¤ Battlefield Archaeology
  ¤ Unending Vigil
  ¤ Open Letter to the PM
  ¤ Government Complicity
  ¤ Political Minefield
  ¤ Cobbers Remembered at Shrine
  ¤ Recovery, Identification
      & Disposal
  ¤ The Military, Media & Exploratory
      Dig
  ¤ Red Cross Digitization Project
  ¤ Keeping Alive The Memory
  ¤ Dedication of New Fromelles Military Cemetery
  ¤ German Archives Shed New Light

Biographical Databases
  ¤ Australian Roll of Missing
  ¤ Roll of Missing (PDF)
  ¤ British List of Missing
  ¤ Register of War Dead Identified at
     Fromelles (PDF)
  ¤ Fromelles cemetery headstone
     photos

Internet Resources

Reading List

Glossary

Contributions
  ¤ Heroes by Joyce Sanders
  ¤ Fog of War by Ron Austin
  ¤ Death Of Sir James McCay

Feedback
info@fromellesdiscussiongroup.com

Media Contacts
media@fromellesdiscussiongroup.com

Guest Book
  Sign the Guest Book

Other Resources
  ¤ Project Launch Document
  ¤ CWGC Charter
  ¤ Fromelles 1916
  ¤ Blunder at Fleurbaix
  ¤ Warriors Brave And True
  ¤ Australian Army War Diaries
  ¤ Data Structure Report
  ¤ Unearthing The Past
  ¤ Red Cross Museum
  ¤ Australian Fromelles Project Group
  ¤ 'In Flanders Fields'
  ¤ Silhouettes of War
  ¤ Photographs, Postcards &
      Illustrations
  ¤ Notice Board

Contact Us

Map printed on Page 5 of the Mercury (Hobart, Tasmania) on Monday, 24 July 1916. Australian Newspaper beta citation: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1041253.

The Somme Offensive
  ¤ 1916 Somme Map
  ¤ British Plan 1 July 1916
  ¤ Battle of the Somme (Wikipedia)
  ¤ What really happened at Fromelles
  ¤ Battle Lines Drawn

Miscellanous
  ¤ Fromelles DiG - Apology
  ¤ SBS Television
  ¤ Darlow Smithson Productions
  ¤ Deutsches Generalkonsulat Melbourne
  ¤ State Library of Victoria
  ¤ The Australian Greens
  ¤ Liberal Party of Australia
  ¤ New Zealand Government
  ¤ British All-Party Parliamentary War Graves & Battlefields Heritage Group
  ¤ The West Australian
  ¤ Media@ FromellesDiscussionGroup.com
  ¤ Daily Liberal
  ¤ News Update - February 2010
  ¤ Bavarian Central State Archives
  ¤ Poster : AIF in the Great War (PDF)
  ¤ MIA recovery unit established by Army
  ¤ US links to the battle of Fleurbaix
  ¤ Request to post interview with Lambis Englezos

Born in Guelph, Ontario, in 1872 Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae was a Canadian poet, physician, author and soldier, according to Wikipedia. Grandson of Scottish immigrants, McCrae apparently penned ‘In Flanders Fields’ on the 3rd May 1915 at a field dressing station near the Canal de l’Yser, near Ypres.

Just as the red poppy has come to symbolize remembrance and is used by the Returned and Services League of Australia as a significant motif on and around 11 November annually, this poem has come to represent the grotesque sacrifice of World War One and the horrific blood-letting which occurred on the Western Front.

The author went to France in WWI as a medical officer with the first Canadian contingent and background on the famous surgeon can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCrae.

In Flanders Fields

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.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)