France, John McCrae, a Canadian doctor assigned to the Medical Corps, had written the most famous poem about World War I, “In Flanders Fields.” It is a paean to soldiers who died in battle: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row.” McCrae himself died in the war, but not in battle. He was felled by pneumonia in 1918—which leading virologists say almost certainly was caused by influenza.
