Esssex Farm Cemetery

This cemetery is in the site where Canadian doctor John McRae wrote the poem “InFlanders Fields”.

He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially dissatisfied with his work, discarded it.

The location also still has the remains of a field aid station he had built.Read more