At the end of 2006 Wikipedia listed 53 verified surviving veterans of WWI. A year on and the number has fallen to just 19. 2007 saw the death of the last known serving officer (Philip Mayne), the last Romanian veteran (Gheorghe Panculescu) and the last Scottish veteran (William Young).
These are the known surviving veterans:
Henry Allingham (British) - at 111 the oldest living WWI veteran
Harry Patch (British) - the last surviving British soldier to fight in the trenches on the Western Front
Bill Stone (British)
Claude Choules (British)
Syd Lucas (British)
Glady Power (British)
Lazarre Ponticelli (Italian)
Delfino Borroni (Italian)
Francesco Chiarello (Italian)
Frank Buckles (USA)
Harry Landis (USA)
Raymond Cambefort (French)
Louis de Cazenave (French) - the last surviving French veteran of the Western Front
Franz Kunstler (Hungarian - ethnic German) Last surviving veteran of the Austro-Hungarian army
Erich Kastner (German) - Last known German veteran
John Babcock (Canadian) - Last known Canadian veteran
Yakup Satar (Turkish) - Last known veteran of the Ottoman Army
Stanislaw Wycech (Polish) - Served in the Polish Military Organisation. Last known Polish veteran
John Campbell (Australian) - Last surviving Australian veteran
In a few years there will be none left. France and Canda will hold state funerals for the last veterans. In Britain there will be a national memorial service in Westminster Abbey.
6 comments:
Wow! I'm surprised there are still that many...
Hi Jams, wishing you a fantastic New Years!!!
I'll be spending the rest of the day cooking up sumptuous fare for us to dine upon this celebratory evening.
Oh, who am I kidding? I'll just be opening boxes of pre-packaged snack foods and heating them up. :)
You always have the most interesting odd little posts here Jams. Current but like no one else.
Isn't it amazing that there are so many left for they must all be a very goodly age and they are men!
It is a pleasant surprise that there4 are still that many. Sadely they will all be gone in a few years.
I hope you have a great new year Ewbl!
THanks jmb, I'm glad you enjpy the Poor Mouth. It's much appreciated
It made me kind of sad reading this, but then I thought, they were granted their lives all those years ago, and what long ones they made of it! So none of us should be sad for them.
They certainly have had very long lives Alison. We are about to see WWI pass into recorded rather than history
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