<P> Though various legends have developed as to the inspiration for the poem , the most commonly held belief is that McCrae wrote `` In Flanders Fields '' on May 3 , 1915 , the day after presiding over the funeral and burial of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer , who had been killed during the Second Battle of Ypres . The poem was written as he sat upon the back of a medical field ambulance near an advance dressing post at Essex Farm , just north of Ypres . The poppy , which was a central feature of the poem , grew in great numbers in the spoiled earth of the battlefields and cemeteries of Flanders . </P>
<P> Though various legends have developed as to the inspiration for the poem , the most commonly held belief is that McCrae wrote `` In Flanders Fields '' on May 3 , 1915 , the day after presiding over the funeral and burial of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer , who had been killed during the Second Battle of Ypres . The poem was written as he sat upon the back of a medical field ambulance near an advance dressing post at Essex Farm , just north of Ypres . The poppy , which was a central feature of the poem , grew in great numbers in the spoiled earth of the battlefields and cemeteries of Flanders . </P>
where was john mccrae when he wrote in flanders fields
where was john mccrae when he wrote in flanders fields
the back of a medical field ambulance near an advance dressing post at Essex Farm , just north of Ypres
the back of a medical field ambulance near an advance dressing post at Essex Farm , just north of Ypres