19 15 In the spring, during the second battle of ypres, McRae was responsible for dressing and treating the wounded in Flanders. While performing his duties as a surgeon, he also served as a gunman and was also responsible for funeral services. Comrade Alexis helmer was killed during this period. On the second day after his friend Captain Alexis helmer was buried, McRae sat in the ambulance near the bandaging station on the Isil Canal and vented his pain with a pen on a piece of paper torn from his notebook. Looking at the wild poppies blooming in ditches and crosses, he was inspired: soldiers who died for their country were buried under crying poppies, and brave larks swept their wings in the sky. The living miss the time spent with the dead, and pray for the torch of victory and peace to light up the battlefield in the past ... McRae wrote a sonnet in "Precious Twenty Minutes", which was later known to the world as the famous poem "In Flanders Battlefield".
A young soldier witnessed the whole process of McRae's writing poetry. Cyril Ellison, a 22-year-old master sergeant, was delivering a letter when he saw McRae. Mcrae looked up at the sergeant major coming towards him and continued to write his poem. "When we wrote, his face was very tired, but calm," Ellison recalled. "From time to time, he looked around and his eyes wandered over helmer's grave." After writing, he took the email from Ellison and handed the paper to the young sergeant without saying a word. Ellison was deeply moved by what he read:
"This song faithfully depicts the scenery in front of us. The word "blow" in the first line only appeared when it was published in Punch magazine. It didn't work at first, but it was used in the penultimate line. He used that word in that line, because that morning, poppies really floated in the gentle east wind. I never thought that one day it would turn into ink and be published. In my opinion, it is just a realistic picture we have seen. "
In fact, as Ellison said, this poem is almost unknown to the world. Mcrae was dissatisfied with the poem and threw it away. But one of his comrades-in-arms-Lieutenant Colonel Edward Morrison, former editor of the Ottawa Newspaper and commander of the First Artillery Brigade, or Lieutenant Colonel J.M. Aird, a staff officer-took it back and sent it to a newspaper in London. The spectator refused to publish it. Fortunately, Punch published this poem on February 8th, 19 15.
McRae's poem is one of the most significant war poems in history, and it is an eternal legacy left by the battle of ypres in 19 15.