Essex Farm Cemetery, Ypres (Ieper,) Flanders
Posted in History, Poetry at 11:00 on 11 November 2018
Essex Farm Cemetery is located on the banks of the Ypres-Yser canal by the site of the Advanced Dressing Station where Lt Col John McCrae was serving as a medical officer when he wrote his famous poem “In Flanders Fields.” I have blogged about him previously in connection with the McCrae Memorial at Eilean Donan Castle in Lochalsh, Scotland.
The cemetery contains more than 1,000 graves. Unusually for a Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery its Cross of Sacrifice is located right at the entrance:-
Graves from northwest:-
From southeast. Note Yorkshire Memorial on the canal bank:-
From northeast:-
From south. Again note Yorkshire Memorial (which I shall come back to):-
Graves from Yorkshire Memorial:-
Graves from north, Yorkshire Memorial to left:-
A tree trunk has grown round the gravestone of Private J MacPherson, Seaforth Highlanders, who died on 5/7/1917, aged 33:-
Symbolic of the fact they fought and died over the same ground the cemetery holds a German grave, Franz Heger, RIR, 238, 7/8/1916:-
Grave of Rifleman V J Strudwick, The Rifle Brigade, 14/1/1916, aged 15, said to be the youngest British Empire casualty of the Great War. (There may be some doubt about this.) It is nevertheless a focus for remembrance:-
John McCrae Commemoration stone. Written in four languages, French, Flemish, English and German, with the poem itself also inscribed on the memorial along with a facsimile of the handwritten manuscript:-
The bunkers at Essex Farm Cemetery where John McCrae worked as a medic:-
Bunker interior:-
Another bunker interior:-
Bunkers, looking back up to Essex Farm Cemetery grounds:-
Information board with a photograph of how the bunkers appeared during the war:-
Lest We Forget:-
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.
Tags: Belgium, Eilean Donan Castle, Essex Farm Cemetery, First World War, Flanders, Ieper, In Flanders Fields, McCrae Memorial, the Great War, War Memorials, World War 1, WW1, WWI, Yorkshire Memorial, Ypres, Ypres-Yser canal
Judith
11 November 2018 at 23:21
A moving tribute, Jack. And thank you for providing the links. I visited the Essex Farm Cemetery site and looked up some of the individual records.
Your photographs are also so well done.
I remember learning to recite “In Flanders Fields” when I was in the second grade, in preparation for a school assembly for Veteran’s Day, November 11th.
Our teacher, Miss Morris, was older than my grandparents, and my grandfather was a WWI veteran. In 1960, she must have been at least 70 years of age, and not able to retire, with a birth year no later than 1890. She fervently had us memorize this poem, and I can only imagine her memories of that war that she put so much effort into a big bunch of 7-year-olds being able to recite this. She must have told us something about that war because I really truly felt the tremendous sadness in the poem.
jackdeighton
12 November 2018 at 19:48
Judith,
Thanks for your appreciation.
The Great War was still a presence for those of that generation – our grandparents generation – even those fifty or so years later. I remember people making a point of watching the first broadcasts of the BBC documentary “The Great War” in 1964.
The Second World War is still so for their children (and grandchildren.) We have a friend whose father was killed at Arras in 1940 and still proudly wears his medals at the annual commemoration on Remembrance Day.