"The Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia and other Returned Soldiers Organisations throughout the British Empire and Allied Countries have passed resolutions at their international conventions to recognise the Poppy of Flanders' Fields as the international memorial flower to be worn on the anniversary of Armistice Day.”Īustralians wear a Red Poppy on Remembrance Day for three reasons. The League adopted the idea in 1921, announcing: The Red Poppy was adopted as that emblem and since then has been accepted as the Emblem of Remembrance. In England in 1919, the British Legion sought an emblem that would honour the dead and help the living. In soldiers’ folklore, the vivid red of the poppy came from the blood of their comrades soaking the ground. Worn on Remembrance Day (11 November) each year, the red poppies were among the first to flower in the devastated battlefields of northern France and Belgium in the First World War. The Red Poppy has special significance for Australians. ![]() What is the significance for Australians? At the second battle of Ypres in 1915, when in charge of a small first-aid post, he wrote in pencil on a page from his despatch book, a poem that has come to be known as 'Flanders' Field' which described the poppies that marked the graves of soldiers killed fighting for their country. McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. ![]() ![]() He was buried in the cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain. A young friend and former student, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, was killed on 2 May. Whilst serving in the First World War, one death in particular affected the then Major McCrae. Trooper Pulanco places a red poppy next to the names of the cavalry soldiers killed during World War Two at the Australian War Memorial.Ĭanadian Colonel John McCrae first described the Red Poppy, the Flanders’ poppy, as the flower of remembrance.
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