“He Did Not Speak About His War Experiences Until He Turned 100″ – Last British World War 1 Vet Dies

The Last Fighting Tommy

Times Online:

The Wells Cathedral bell began to toll today as Britain bade farewell to Harry Patch, its last surviving soldier from the First World War.

About 1,000 members of the public have been given tickets to attend Mr Patch’s funeral – which starts at noon – joining the veteran’s friends and relatives and military representatives including General Sir Richard Dannatt, head of the army.

At 11am, the cathedral bell started to toll 111 times – once for every year of his life. That was expected to take 50 minutes.

Mr Patch, a plumber, was conscripted as an 18-year-old and served as a machine-gunner in the trenches of Ypres on the Western Front, where he was injured and saw three of his closest friends killed in the battle of Passchendaele.

But he did not speak about his war experiences until after he turned 100, although his recollections formed the basis of a biography called The Last Fighting Tommy.

He died in a Wells nursing home a week after another First World War survivor, Henry Allingham, who at the age of 113 had been named the world’s oldest man.

Some of Mr Patch’s admirers slept overnight on Cathedral Green so they could be first in line for the public tickets for today’s service. Others were relying on a large screen erected to relay proceedings live from inside the building.

At the end of the service a bugler will play Last Post, the last time it will be sounded for any British veteran of the trenches. The sole British-born survivor of the conflict is the seaman Claude Choules, 108, who lives in Australia.

Mr Patch’s biographer, Richard van Emdem, said that he had recognised he was a symbol of his generation.

“He was very aware of the fact that he was the very last veteran to have served in the trenches, and I think there was a certain pride in that,” he said.

“But he realised … that after him it would be a gone history. There would be nobody else to talk to and so he felt very strongly that he should remember the dead, that he should remember those who suffered on both sides of the line.”