Last known combatant of WWI dies aged 110
Source: Agencies |
May 6, 2011, Friday
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CLAUDE Stanley Choules, the last known combat veteran of World War I, died yesterday at a nursing home in Perth, Australia, his family said. He was 110.
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 age 108.
"We all loved him," his 84-year-old daughter Daphne Edinger said. "It's going to be sad to think of him not being here any longer, but that's the way things go."
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, said in March 2010.
Choules was born on 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 five years old to pursue an acting career. The abandonment affected him profoundly, Pow said, and he grew up determined to create a happy home for his kids.
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.
World War I was on 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 10am," 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 US-based group that tracks veterans.
Choules was the last known surviving combatant. Green, who turned 110 in February, served as a waitress in the Women's Royal Air Force.
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 age 108.
"We all loved him," his 84-year-old daughter Daphne Edinger said. "It's going to be sad to think of him not being here any longer, but that's the way things go."
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, said in March 2010.
Choules was born on 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 five years old to pursue an acting career. The abandonment affected him profoundly, Pow said, and he grew up determined to create a happy home for his kids.
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.
World War I was on 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 10am," 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 US-based group that tracks veterans.
Choules was the last known surviving combatant. Green, who turned 110 in February, served as a waitress in the Women's Royal Air Force.
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