The last WWI vet (again)

[scott_sanford]

It seems that Claude Choules (b. 3 March 1901) has passed away, on May fifth. He could give an eyewitness account of Scapa Flow. He served in both World Wars. He was Australian. And, it seems at the moment, the last World War I veteran alive anywhere.

We've lost the last German Hun, the last American Doughboy, the last British Tommy, and the last Canadian veteran already. This appears to be the whole set, alas.

Comments

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

You'll notice that I put "(again)" in the title. I went through this when we lost Harry Patch, and possibly when Frank Buckles went. It wouldn't surprise me all that much for one or two more centenarians to be around somewhere, poorly documented.

A bit over ten years ago I passed along a news story about the death of the very last person still collecting survivor's benefits from a Civil War veteran in the family. (He'd joined the Army under-age, then as an old fart married a woman much too young for him.) It turned out that, no, there was another Civil War widow still out there. So I'm ready to believe that in a large population even rare outliers happen in higher numbers than we expect.