WW1 | Tower of London Memorial

"Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red", an installation by Paul Cummins
and a team of volunteers to remember British soldiers who fell in the
Great War.

The British have set the standard for remembering their dead.

A London art installation features a Red Sea of 888,246 ceramic poppies - one for every British and Commonwealth soldier who died during World War I. It is shown at left.

The poppy became a symbol of World War I dead and Armistice Day because of "In Flanders Fields", the great poem by the Canadian John McCrae who was a battlefield physician in Belgium in 1915.  An excellent video with readings from War Poets appears here.

Most of the poppies were laid in the moat of the Tower of London throughout the summer by the artist Paul Cummins and more than 100 volunteer assistants.

The installation was opened in August, 100 years after the first hostilities of World War I. The last flower will be planted on November 11, Armistice Day, 1918.