The Great War has Lost it's Last - Last Combat Veteran of WWI dies in Australia at Age 110 - Polidicks

[url]http://www.startribune.com/world/121294359.html[/url] [quote]SYDNEY - Claude Stanley Choules, the last known combat veteran of World War I, died Thursday at a nursing home in the Western Australia city of Perth, his family said. He was 110. "We all loved him," his 84-year-old daughter Daphne Edinger told The Associated Press. "It's going to be sad to think of him not being here any longer, but that's the way things go." Beloved for his wry sense of humor and humble nature, the British-born Choules — nicknamed "Chuckles" by his comrades in the Australian Navy — never liked to fuss over his achievements, which included a 41-year military career and the publication of his first book at the age of 108. He usually told the curious that the secret to a long life was simply to "keep breathing." Sometimes, he chalked up his longevity to cod liver oil. But his children say in his heart, he believed it was the love of his family that kept him going for so many years. "His family was the most important thing in his life," his other daughter, Anne Pow, told the AP in a March 2010 interview. "It was a good way to grow up, you know. Very reassuring." Choules was born March 3, 1901, in the small British town of Pershore, Worcestershire, one of seven children. As a child, he was told his mother had died — a lie meant to cover a more painful truth: she left when he was 5 to pursue an acting career. The abandonment affected him profoundly, Pow said, and he grew up determined to create a happy home for his own children. In his autobiography, "The Last of the Last," he remembered the day the first motor car drove through town, an event that brought all the villagers outside to watch. He remembered when a packet of cigarettes cost a penny. He remembered learning to surf off the coast of South Africa, and how strange he found it that black locals were forced to use a separate beach from whites. He was drawn to the water at an early age, fishing and swimming at the local brook. Later in life, he would regularly swim in the warm waters off the Western Australia state coast, only stopping when he turned 100. World War I was raging when Choules began training with the British Royal Navy, just one month after he turned 14. In 1917, he joined the battleship HMS Revenge, from which he watched the 1918 surrender of the German High Seas Fleet, the main battle fleet of the German Navy during the war. "There was no sign of fight left in the Germans as they came out of the mist at about 10 a.m.," Choules wrote in his autobiography. The German flag, he recalled, was hauled down at sunset. "So ended the most momentous day in the annals of naval warfare," he wrote. "A fleet of ships surrendered without firing a shot." Millions died in the war, which lasted from 1914-1918. Choules and another Briton, Florence Green, became the war's last known surviving service members after the death of American Frank Buckles in February, according to the Order of the First World War, a U.S.-based group that tracks veterans. Choules was the last known surviving combatant of the war. Green, who turned 110 in February, served as a waitress in the Women's Royal Air Force. Choules met his wife Ethel Wildgoose in 1926 on the first day of his six-week boat trip from England to Australia, where he had been dispatched to serve as a naval instructor at Flinders Naval Depot in Victoria state. Ten months later, they were married. They would spend the next 76 years together, until her death in 2003 at the age of 98.[/quote] Full article in the link. Really terrible news. I guess that's time for you. Been almost a century anyways.

Wow, RIP. Lasted quite a long time.

:smith:

Damn shame, but nothing lasts forever.

He seems like he has had quite the life.

And so the great war passes from physical memory to the musty tomes of history. Truly a shame, but this must one day happen to all major events. Despite it's passing from the minds of the living into the books of history, we must never forget it, so that we can ensure imperialism does not cause this war to repeat itself in the future. Rest in Peace.

Just as sad to think that the lot of you will see the same thing happen for WWII vets.

Nice to have a dad till your 84 I guess.

I don't like to see this as something sad he did live through an entire century of world history, he lived a good long life.

What an awesome man, he fought in a massive fucking war and still lived for 110 years. Wow

The lost generation has finally been lost, RIP.

Terribly sad news, at least he lived a full life. I was really hoping that at least one vet would survive to the 100 year anniversary but that's really pushing it. Who knows, maybe it'll happen in 30 or so years.

atleast he doesent have to live with images of his friends getting blown up by shells anymore.

Damn, my grandmother has lived through both world wars. She's 99.. She's had a pension for 39 years. Like a boss.

[QUOTE=doonbugie2;29626438]atleast he doesent have to live with images of his friends getting blown up by shells anymore.[/QUOTE] He was in the navy, he probably didn't see much action. Anyone who spent a day in a trench died years ago.

[QUOTE=mastermaul;29626501]He was in the navy, he probably didn't see much action. Anyone who spent a day in a trench died years ago.[/QUOTE] Oh, then nevermind.

This is truly a shame. Knowing that all of the WWII/Korean War veterans and most of the Vietnam veterans will die in your life time sucks as well.

[QUOTE=mastermaul;29626501]He was in the navy, he probably didn't see much action. Anyone who spent a day in a trench died years ago.[/QUOTE] He was on the HMS Revenge, which was a part of England's main fleet, that man saw action.

[QUOTE=mastermaul;29626501]He was in the navy, he probably didn't see much action. Anyone who spent a day in a trench died years ago.[/QUOTE] wasn't harry patch in the trenches? [editline]4th May 2011[/editline] yeah harry patch saw combat in the pits, and he died not to long ago

RIP And just a week after anzac day...

[QUOTE=mastermaul;29626501]He was in the navy, he probably didn't see much action. Anyone who spent a day in a trench died years ago.[/QUOTE] Yeah no shit, most of them died [B]in[/B] the trenches.

[QUOTE=Contag;29627419]Yeah no shit, most of them died [B]in[/B] the trenches.[/QUOTE] No. German Death Rate : 16.12% Austrian Death Rate: 15.38 French Death Rate: 16.36% Italian Death Rate: 11.58% British Death Rate: 10.20% US Death Rate: 2.89% [url]http://www.worldwar1.com/tlcrates.htm[/url]

[QUOTE=mastermaul;29627569]No. German Death Rate : 16.12% Austrian Death Rate: 15.38 French Death Rate: 16.36% Italian Death Rate: 11.58% British Death Rate: 10.20% US Death Rate: 2.89% [url]http://www.worldwar1.com/tlcrates.htm[/url][/QUOTE] I count the wounded as dead due to the lack of antibiotics.

[QUOTE=mastermaul;29627569]No. German Death Rate : 16.12% Austrian Death Rate: 15.38 French Death Rate: 16.36% Italian Death Rate: 11.58% British Death Rate: 10.20% US Death Rate: 2.89% [url]http://www.worldwar1.com/tlcrates.htm[/url][/QUOTE] Wow, really? Those WW1 movies were pretty overly dramatic, then. (Gallipoli)

[QUOTE=Shadaez;29628069]Wow, really? Those WW1 movies were pretty overly dramatic, then. (Gallipoli)[/QUOTE]There was a lot of slaughter, it's just that there was even more people to fill the emptied trenches.

At least he lived a long life.

It's time to procedurally start forgetting our past mistakes and make them again a year hundred or so later from now.

[QUOTE=Shadaez;29628069]Wow, really? Those WW1 movies were pretty overly dramatic, then. (Gallipoli)[/QUOTE] You'd need to double all those figures to account for deaths due to infection, but yeah. [editline]5th May 2011[/editline] Triple it, actually, to account for MIA people.

Must be pretty amazing to live through a whole century of history. Not many people get that experience.

[QUOTE=-Chief-;29630230]Must be pretty amazing to live through a whole century of history. Not many people get that experience.[/QUOTE] Since I was born in 1990, my goal is to live to the year 2100 (110 years old); that's living through 3 centuries! I'm fucking doing it. [editline]5th May 2011[/editline] Anyone born right before the year 2000 has a pretty good chance of living through 3 centuries actually.