Of all the young Englishmen who died in World War I, perhaps the most romanticized as a hero was Rupert BrookeÊ(1887–1915). Brooke seemed in many respects an ideal young man. Intelligent and athletic, he performed well in his classes and on the cricket and "football" fields at the Rugby School. He entered King's College, Cambridge, in 1906; made many friends; and was active in university life. He then studied in Europe and traveled to Canada and the South Seas, writing travel articles and publishing a book, Poems, in 1911. When war began, Brooke joined the Royal Navy. The sequence of patriotic, idealistic sonnets called 1914 made him famous. On the way to fight in the Gallipoli campaign after a disastrous battle in the North Sea, Brooke contracted blood poisoning and died. He was buried on the Greek island of Skyros. After his death, Winston Churchill wrote an obituary describing Brooke as "all that one would wish England's noblest sons to be."