Eagle Feathers #267 – Flanders Fields

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

For the last one hundred years, much of the world has paid homage to November 11, 1918. On this day, commencing in 1919, the annual celebration of the end of World War I or The War To End All Wars began. It was called Armistice Day in the United States and France, and Remembrance Day in England and Canada.

Armistice Day and Somerville were deeply entrenched from the outset in the American history of the Great War, as it was also called. In 1915, three prominent Somerville citizens perished on the torpedoed British ocean liner, the RMS Lusitania. This incident helped launch America into the conflict. World War I memorials are scattered across the city in the form of street names, parks, statues, and squares.

Army Corporal Richard Trum was killed just ten days before the Armistice was signed. Somerville’s centrally located Trum Field honors him, while its abutting Charles E. Ryan Road honors another Somerville soldier killed three months earlier.

This holiday honors 29 other World War I servicemen from Magoun Square and 107 more throughout the city who lost their lives in the Great War. After World War II, 34 more names were added to the Trum Field list. In addition, 415 Somerville residents were added to the sacred World War II Memorial Honor Roll located on Central Hill. Since 1952, Armistice Day has been called Veterans Day.

Today, the number of Somerville residents who died in service since the Armistice is as follows:

• World War I – 148
• World War II – 417
• Korean War – 30
• Vietnam War – 33
• Beirut, Lebanon – 1

Total service deaths – 629

All of our heroes this coming Veteran’s Day can best be acknowledged by the words written by one of their own, Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a World War I soldier, on December 8, 1915:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders Fields.