To the Canadian planning to visit Europe for the first time, there is no part of the trip that is looked forward to with quite as great an interest since the close of the Great War, as the visit to the battlefields. During the four long years that this struggle continued, the war area of Northern France and Belgium became familiar ground to Canadians. We had a real interest there, for there were few Canadians who had not “Somewhere in France” someone near and dear to them who were doing their bit in this great struggle. It was during these days that Ypres, St. Julien, Sanctuary Wood, St. Eloi, Armentieres, Lens, Vimy and Passchaendaele, became familiar names to Canadians. And there were few who did not hope some day or other to be able to visit the places made sacred to the valor and sacrifice of Canadians in those tragic days.

There was but little opportunity to visit the war cemeteries and locate the graves of Canadian soldiers buried there. One of the Ontario editors, Mr. Blaney McGuire of Orangeville, who with his wife and daughter were members of the party, had two sons killed in the war. They were buried near Ypres, where father, mother and sister visited the graves of two fine young Canadians who gave their young lives for their country and who sleep beneath the poppies of Flanders. As we drove through the war area on either side, in the fields and along side the roadway, everywhere were to be seen the red poppies, bringing to mind McCrae’s immortal poem “In Flanders Fields”. The “Guns Below” have long since ceased to thunder, but the lark still sings and the wooden crosses in the hundreds of cemeteries, now being replaced by permanent headstones, remain to tell the story of sacrifice and suffering.