Next month marks the 90th anniversary of the end of the Great War, a mainly European conflict in which great empires, such as the British Empire (with the world's largest navy), Russia (with the world's largest army) and the Ottoman Empire, clashed.
There are just two British survivors of this conflict, Harry Patch and Henry Allingham.
Henry was born in the Victorian Era. He is 112 years old - the oldest man in Europe - and Britain has had six monarchs and 21 prime ministers during his lifetime. He is the only surviving founder member of the RAF, the world's oldest airforce, and the world's biggest in 1918.
Harry Patch is 110 years old, and never spoke about his exploits in WWI until he was 80.
WWI is the conflict in which the British were the first to use the tank, and one of the frst conflicts in which they didn't wear their famous redcoats.
Survivors' tales of the Great War, 90 years on
Next month marks the 90th anniversary of the end of the Great War, a conflict which consumed the lives of more than 20 million soldiers and civilians. Today just a handful of men who served and fought in the war survive. Sean Rayment profiles the last two British men who fought in the conflict.
25 Oct 2008
The Telegraph
Henry Allingham is the last survivor of the RAF from the Great War, and is seen here speaking to Flt Lt Anthony 'Parky' Parkinson of 29 Squadron Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY
Henry Allingham was desperate to do his bit when the call went up for volunteers at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914.
But his desperately-ill mother begged him to stay at home and tend to her. Had she not, Mr Allingham, like so many of his generation, may well have perished on the battlefields of northern France.
But after her death the young man, from Clapham, south London, enlisted in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) as an engineer in 1915, and went onto serve in the some of the most bloody battles of the entire conflict.
Despite the odds, Mr Allingham survived and today, at 112, he is Britain's oldest living man and a living link to one of the greatest human catastrophes of the modern age.
Mr Allingham was born in 1896 when Queen Victoria was still on the throne and powered flight was still more than six years away.
WORLD WAR I MILITARY DEATHS (ENTENTE POWERS)
Russia: 30%
France: 25%
Britain: 16%
Italy: 12%
Serbia: 8%
Romania: 6%
United States: 2%
Others: 1%
His hearing or eyesight might not be what it was, but according to those who care for him at the blind ex-serviceman's charity, St Dunstan's, he still enjoys a joke and his mind is as sharp as ever.
Astonishingly, Mr Allingham can still recall seeing WG Grace playing cricket in 1903. He also remembers the frightening sight of shells ricocheting across the sea during the Battle of Jutland, which was fought off the coast of Denmark in the North Sea in June 1916.
The following year, having survived the battle, which claimed the lives of more than 6,000 British sailors, Mr Allingham was posted to the Western Front where he helped to prepare aircrews for the Ypres Offensive and flew in the rear cockpit of aircraft armed with two rifles and later a Lewis Gun and a bag of bombs.
On April 1, 1918, the Royal Flying Corps and the RNAS were merged into the Royal Air Force and today he is the oldest surviving member of the service.
Put in context, Mr Allingham's longevity seems almost impossible. He was born 48 years to the day before the D-Day invasion of Normandy, and Britain has had six monarchs and 21 Prime Ministers in the 112 years that he has been alive. His two daughters, Jean and Betty, died decades ago and his grandson, David Gray, is now 60.
WORLD WAR I MILITARY DEATHS (CENTRAL POWERS)
Germany: 52%
Austro-Hungary: 35%
Ottoman Empire: 10%
Bulgaria: 3%
When asked for the secret of long life earlier this year, Mr Allingham said: "I don't think there's a particular reason. The only thing I can say is all my life I have lived within my limitations, take life slowly, don't get any stress or strains. The more birthdays I enjoy the longer I live."
Speaking to the BBC last year, Mr Allingham said: "I did not know that in my unit there were 4,700 casualties, half of them missing, believed killed in action, blown to smithereens. There were bits and pieces everywhere. No wonder the rats survived.
"I've got to thank those fellows for what they did. If the numbers who died had died in the Second World War I don't know if there would have been a Britain."
British soldiers cook geese sent to them from home, Christmas 1914
Harry Patch is the last Tommy of the Great War - the last British man alive to survive the unmitigated slaughter of the battle of Passchendaele in 1917 in which almost a million soldiers of all nationalities were killed or wounded.
Mr Patch never spoke about his exploits in the Great War until his 80th birthday. He was born into the gentle life of rural Somerset in 1898 and grew up in the village of Coombe Down, near Bath. He left school at 15 and trained as a plumber. War broke out when Mr Patch was 16 and he was conscripted into the Army two years later, where he became part of a small close-knit team trained to use the Lewis Gun.
During a BBC interview in 2003, he recalled the moment he came face-to-face with a German soldier and admitted that he could not shoot him dead. "I had about five seconds to make the decision. I brought him down, but I didn't kill him," he said.
Mr Patch should have died 91 years ago on a dark night in September 1917 when a German "whizz-bang" shell exploded among his battalion just as they were being pulled out of the front line and were moving to the rear over open ground. A shell splinter struck Mr Patch in the groin and one other member of the team survived. The rest were blown to pieces.
"It killed Number Three – he came from Truro – and Number Four and Number Five. Jack and Jill we called those two. They came from Falmouth. Number Three was known as Maudy. There was an actress of that name. He had a good sense of humour. I can remember the shell bursting. I saw the flash and I must have passed out."
Mr Patch was one of the lucky ones who had "copped a Blighty", a wound serious enough to warrant his eventual evacuation from France to Britain, where, during his recovery, he met his first wife. The couple were together for 56 years and had two sons, who have both since died.
Mr Patch was too old to fight in the Second World War and instead worked as a sanitary engineer in an American camp in southern England.
But despite being something of a national hero, the 110-year-old former private in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry is not proud of his longevity.
"I don't like it," he said last year in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. "I sit there and think. And some nights I dream – of that first battle. I can't forget it.
"I fell in a trench. There was a fella there. He must have been about our age. He was ripped shoulder to waist with shrapnel. I held his hand for the last 60 seconds of his life. He only said one word: 'Mother'. I didn't see her, but she was there. No doubt about it. He passed from this life into the next, and it felt as if I was in God's presence. I've never got over it. You never forget it. Never."
dailymail.co.uk
There are just two British survivors of this conflict, Harry Patch and Henry Allingham.
Henry was born in the Victorian Era. He is 112 years old - the oldest man in Europe - and Britain has had six monarchs and 21 prime ministers during his lifetime. He is the only surviving founder member of the RAF, the world's oldest airforce, and the world's biggest in 1918.
Harry Patch is 110 years old, and never spoke about his exploits in WWI until he was 80.
WWI is the conflict in which the British were the first to use the tank, and one of the frst conflicts in which they didn't wear their famous redcoats.
Survivors' tales of the Great War, 90 years on
Next month marks the 90th anniversary of the end of the Great War, a conflict which consumed the lives of more than 20 million soldiers and civilians. Today just a handful of men who served and fought in the war survive. Sean Rayment profiles the last two British men who fought in the conflict.
25 Oct 2008
The Telegraph
Henry Allingham is the last survivor of the RAF from the Great War, and is seen here speaking to Flt Lt Anthony 'Parky' Parkinson of 29 Squadron Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY
Henry Allingham was desperate to do his bit when the call went up for volunteers at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914.
But his desperately-ill mother begged him to stay at home and tend to her. Had she not, Mr Allingham, like so many of his generation, may well have perished on the battlefields of northern France.
But after her death the young man, from Clapham, south London, enlisted in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) as an engineer in 1915, and went onto serve in the some of the most bloody battles of the entire conflict.
Despite the odds, Mr Allingham survived and today, at 112, he is Britain's oldest living man and a living link to one of the greatest human catastrophes of the modern age.
Mr Allingham was born in 1896 when Queen Victoria was still on the throne and powered flight was still more than six years away.
WORLD WAR I MILITARY DEATHS (ENTENTE POWERS)
Russia: 30%
France: 25%
Britain: 16%
Italy: 12%
Serbia: 8%
Romania: 6%
United States: 2%
Others: 1%
His hearing or eyesight might not be what it was, but according to those who care for him at the blind ex-serviceman's charity, St Dunstan's, he still enjoys a joke and his mind is as sharp as ever.
Astonishingly, Mr Allingham can still recall seeing WG Grace playing cricket in 1903. He also remembers the frightening sight of shells ricocheting across the sea during the Battle of Jutland, which was fought off the coast of Denmark in the North Sea in June 1916.
The following year, having survived the battle, which claimed the lives of more than 6,000 British sailors, Mr Allingham was posted to the Western Front where he helped to prepare aircrews for the Ypres Offensive and flew in the rear cockpit of aircraft armed with two rifles and later a Lewis Gun and a bag of bombs.
On April 1, 1918, the Royal Flying Corps and the RNAS were merged into the Royal Air Force and today he is the oldest surviving member of the service.
Put in context, Mr Allingham's longevity seems almost impossible. He was born 48 years to the day before the D-Day invasion of Normandy, and Britain has had six monarchs and 21 Prime Ministers in the 112 years that he has been alive. His two daughters, Jean and Betty, died decades ago and his grandson, David Gray, is now 60.
WORLD WAR I MILITARY DEATHS (CENTRAL POWERS)
Germany: 52%
Austro-Hungary: 35%
Ottoman Empire: 10%
Bulgaria: 3%
When asked for the secret of long life earlier this year, Mr Allingham said: "I don't think there's a particular reason. The only thing I can say is all my life I have lived within my limitations, take life slowly, don't get any stress or strains. The more birthdays I enjoy the longer I live."
Speaking to the BBC last year, Mr Allingham said: "I did not know that in my unit there were 4,700 casualties, half of them missing, believed killed in action, blown to smithereens. There were bits and pieces everywhere. No wonder the rats survived.
"I've got to thank those fellows for what they did. If the numbers who died had died in the Second World War I don't know if there would have been a Britain."
British soldiers cook geese sent to them from home, Christmas 1914
Harry Patch is the last Tommy of the Great War - the last British man alive to survive the unmitigated slaughter of the battle of Passchendaele in 1917 in which almost a million soldiers of all nationalities were killed or wounded.
Mr Patch never spoke about his exploits in the Great War until his 80th birthday. He was born into the gentle life of rural Somerset in 1898 and grew up in the village of Coombe Down, near Bath. He left school at 15 and trained as a plumber. War broke out when Mr Patch was 16 and he was conscripted into the Army two years later, where he became part of a small close-knit team trained to use the Lewis Gun.
During a BBC interview in 2003, he recalled the moment he came face-to-face with a German soldier and admitted that he could not shoot him dead. "I had about five seconds to make the decision. I brought him down, but I didn't kill him," he said.
Mr Patch should have died 91 years ago on a dark night in September 1917 when a German "whizz-bang" shell exploded among his battalion just as they were being pulled out of the front line and were moving to the rear over open ground. A shell splinter struck Mr Patch in the groin and one other member of the team survived. The rest were blown to pieces.
"It killed Number Three – he came from Truro – and Number Four and Number Five. Jack and Jill we called those two. They came from Falmouth. Number Three was known as Maudy. There was an actress of that name. He had a good sense of humour. I can remember the shell bursting. I saw the flash and I must have passed out."
Mr Patch was one of the lucky ones who had "copped a Blighty", a wound serious enough to warrant his eventual evacuation from France to Britain, where, during his recovery, he met his first wife. The couple were together for 56 years and had two sons, who have both since died.
Mr Patch was too old to fight in the Second World War and instead worked as a sanitary engineer in an American camp in southern England.
But despite being something of a national hero, the 110-year-old former private in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry is not proud of his longevity.
"I don't like it," he said last year in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. "I sit there and think. And some nights I dream – of that first battle. I can't forget it.
"I fell in a trench. There was a fella there. He must have been about our age. He was ripped shoulder to waist with shrapnel. I held his hand for the last 60 seconds of his life. He only said one word: 'Mother'. I didn't see her, but she was there. No doubt about it. He passed from this life into the next, and it felt as if I was in God's presence. I've never got over it. You never forget it. Never."
dailymail.co.uk
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