Doctor, Soldier, Poet

My family and I visited Ypres (now Ieper) in Belgium a few years ago when I was doing research on my first Muskoka Novel, The Summer Before The Storm, set during WW1. The first thing that struck me, besides the fact that the city has been beautifully restored from the rubble of war, was that Lt. Col. John McCrae’s famous poem, “In Flanders Fields” – penned on the battlefields nearby - was plastered everywhere about the town, even in our hotel lobby. The WW1 museum, housed in the rebuilt Cloth Hall, is called “In Flanders Fields”. How surprised I was when I boasted to the owner of the English bookstore that I lived in John McCrae’s hometown, only to have him casually reply, “Oh, you’re from Guelph, Ontario.”

I know that the small museum in Guelph honouring John McCrae regularly has visitors from Europe, so their respect for this famous doctor-poet is more than lip service for tourists.

The author paying homage at John McCrae's grave in Wimereux, France

 I found humanist John McCrae a fascinating person, and couldn’t resist having some of my characters work with him in France in Elusive Dawn. Two of them attend his funeral. Here are excerpts from a letter one writes about it.

We attended [McCrae’s] poignant funeral in Wimereux along with so many others, including lots of brass hats, which speaks of the esteem in which the Col. was held. What was almost hardest to bear was to see the Colonel’s horse, Bonfire, following the flag-draped coffin, with the Colonel’s riding boots reversed in the stirrups. I’ve never seen a sadder animal, for surely he must have known that his beloved master was gone. I cried hardest then… Among the many flowers was a wreath of artificial poppies that the officers from the Colonel’s hospital had managed to procure from Paris. I do think that the Colonel’s most famous poem resonates with everyone, for it seems as if a veil of sorrow has descended on all the staff and patients here. His words will live on and touch many more lives – children yet unborn. That is a noble legacy, is it not?

Hospitals Flapping in the Wind

#2 Canadian General Hospital in Le Tréport, France - Collections Canada

Many of the military hospitals in France and Belgium, including those well behind the lines on the French coast, housed the wounded (and staff) in tents. The winters of 1916-17 and 1917-18 were brutal - among the coldest in living memory - which made life miserable as well as difficult for staff and patients alike. These tents were occasionally blown down in storms, which were all too frequent on that windy north coast. Three hospitals were virtually levelled in a gale in August, 1917.

Some of these tented and hutted hospitals had 2000 or more beds, and with the additional accommodations and facilities required for medical and support staff, were like small towns.

During an offensive, a hospital like the 1st Canadian General at Etaples could have 600 admissions a day. In 1917, that hospital alone admitted 40,500 wounded and ill men. It's delightful to see that there was still time and care taken to bandage a dog's paw, as seen in the photo above.

The largest CWGC cemetery in France, at Etaples, with 11,000 WW1 graves - photo copyright Melanie Wills 

Although seemingly well behind the front lines, the base hospitals were occasionally hit in bombing raids. During one on May 19, 1918, over 60 staff and patients were killed and 80 wounded at the 1st Canadian General, while there were another 250 casualties among the other hospitals in the Etaples district. Contrary to the Geneva Convention, these hospitals had been placed next to vital military installations that were legitimate targets for the German bombers. The middle and right graves at the front of this photo are those of a Canadian doctor and nurse killed in that attack.

Some of my characters work in these hospitals in Elusive Dawn.