Honour for 107-year-old veteran

[Tiffibunny]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4534214.stm

[Kat]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4534214.stm

 

Whoa...wonder what kind of shape he's in? He looks to be really healthy--especially for 107 years of age!!!

[ccg]

Wow, there's no WWI veterans left in Canada (There are 4 that were in the army, but did not see actual combat)

[Scottishmoney]

There was something on CNN recently about surviving WWI veterans, accd to the report there are approximately 30 still alive in the USA, about 10 in Britain, 5 or so in France, 2-3 in Germany, a very small number in Australia. With the exception of Germany, most of the survivors probably never saw actual combat though, just were inducted into the Army, in basic training etc.

[Ætheling]

There's an older surviving war veteran than him in the UK i believe, who is 108.

 

Scotland's oldest surviving war veteran died aged 109 last month (this veteran had been there in the trenches and witnessed the 1914 Christmas football game).

 

Australia's last surviving WWI veteran died back in October.

 

 

The numbers are dwindling fast, these are just the veterans of course, but within the next 10 years the first world war will no longer be within living memory. They'll be many people still around who were born during it, but are very unlikely to remember anything of it.

 

As for the other big event of the 1910s, the Titanic disaster, there are three survivors, all women, two in England and one in the US, and only one of them is old enough to remember anything about it. So that's another piece of history slipping out of living memory.